Forthright began when I wondered:
Could I dismantle the current (broken) model of client services, and run an agency that puts people first?
Could that agency specialize exclusively in the child-and-family focused work I personally love to do?
Could we work with clients who want a true thought partner as opposed to just a vendor?
Well.
Turns out six years later, the proof, as they say, is in the pudding.
Data shows that a little happy goes a long way, from building stronger teams to reducing negative feelings overall. Today, we’re sharing how we share the happy at Forthright, along with research-backed tips for how you can share the happy within your own organization!
Read MorePeople are ready to fight back. They are ready to help. They are ready to "make good trouble."
Your audiences are looking for someone to tell them what to do.
If you’re a nonprofit or association leader, the person they are looking to is YOU. 🫵We’re sharing tips for how to do empower them today.
Read MoreA few weeks ago, I wrote about how coalitions can improve advocacy efforts by aligning around core messages and creating easy-to-use resources to better reach your audiences.
Today, I want to talk about the next step in successfully communicating about your coalition: creating a coalition brand.
Read MoreYou’ve heard the news. We all have.
“There are major cuts coming to nonprofit funding.”
“Funding is being stripped from federal grants.”
“School districts face funding cuts.”
That leads you to the following question: What should you do when you need to talk about funding cuts…even while the news is still unfolding?
As a leader, your role as a communicator is really critical right now.
The heaviness is real. Freezing or waffling could create panic or more confusion.
That’s why today, we are offering three tips to help you communicate clearly about funding cuts.
This year, we updated our client survey to make sure we’re getting even more feedback.
That meant seeking out tough love – the good, the bad, the ugly – from our partners.
As always, we wanted to dig in on the places where there’s room for improvement and to celebrate the areas where we’ve made progress or continue to serve our clients exceptionally well.
Here’s what that looked like:
More constructive feedback to use for firm-wide and individual improvement
Refreshed questionnaire
1:1 interviews as follow-ups
All of that was super successful, and here’s a roundup of what we heard:
Read MoreAs child and family advocates, I understand what we’re up against in 2025 (and beyond) and… I’m feeling energized.
The challenges ahead of us are communications challenges, and at Forthright, we’re poised to meet the moment.
Here’s what I see as the work ahead:
Read More“What are the best interview questions to ask a candidate for your open communications director position?”
“How do you manage a communications workload when you’ve got someone out on parental leave?”
“Who do you tell once a communications teammate gives you notice that she’s leaving your organization for a new job?”
We answer all these questions and more in our new FREE guide to hiring communicators.
A logic chain is a tool your team can use to align around:
what you want your audiences to understand about your work;
what you want your audiences to believe as a result of what they understand; and
the specific, concrete action you want your audiences to take.
Starting with a logic chain when creating a strategic communications plan or before conducting a communications audit ensures your messaging and strategies are laser focused on your end goal.
Here’s a full visual (and examples!) for how the logic chain works.
Read MoreHere’s a conversation I’ve had many times throughout my career:
🙋Executive director: How big should my communications team be?
🤔Me: Well… that depends. How much of your mission relies on convincing people to take action?
We’ve seen it all: 10+ person communications teams, and one part-time person communications teams. A one-person shop could be perfect for some organizations, while others need the full comms squad. Here are the key points to consider as you decide how to invest in YOUR headcount.
Read MoreI really like being a company founder and CEO. But my CEO position isn’t the most important thing about me. Instead, my most important roles are friend, daughter, wife, volunteer, potter and neighbor.
I love what I do all day for work – but the person I am outside of work is much more important to me. And that’s exactly the way it should be.
In fact, the time I spend outside of work caring for myself, my communities and my family makes me a BETTER CEO and a more effective communicator.
So when I started Forthright five years ago, I made a commitment to myself that my roles outside of work would be honored as important, if not more important, than my roles AT work. That’s what sparked our policy of charging more for work we perform outside of our business hours.
Read MoreI can think of a handful of my birthdays (or my wedding with Dan) when I looked around the room and all of the most meaningful people in my life were in one place.
Last Friday night, in New York City, I was honored to have the professional version of that experience when SO MANY Forthright teammates, both past and present, gathered together to celebrate our agency’s 5th anniversary.
Read MoreWhat happens when your brand (like your name, logo, colors and tagline) no longer fits who your organization is, and the vision of what you’re working towards?
It’s time for a rebrand.
At Forthright, we adore rebrands. They are some of the most fun projects we work on!
Here we break down three key elements to a successful rebrand using a recent project we worked on with Positive Childhood Alliance North Carolina (formerly Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina) as an example so you can see how the steps play out.
Read MoreLove them or hate them, we can all agree on one thing – coalitions Get. Things. Done. And all high-impact coalitions have at least one factor in common: they effectively communicate with their audiences at all stages of the coalition lifecycle.
At Forthright, we’ve worked with a number of coalition partners (some that are just starting up, and others that are well established.) We know that bringing the right communications strategy at the right time can help you have even greater impact. That’s why I’m sharing communications tips for every stage of your coalition!
Read MoreOne of the most common questions I get when a potential client reaches out about a project is: who am I going to work with? So today I’m pulling back the curtain on how we put together a team for a client account.
First, our NPS score, a universal score of customer satisfaction, remains nearly double that of the average consulting firm. In fact, for the third year in a row, we saw our NPS score go up!
Our NPS is one of our “north star” measurements, so I’m thrilled by this result and excited we’re maintaining our superstar streak year-over-year.
This year, 100 percent of our clients strongly agree that we make them feel important, and 100 percent of our clients strongly agree that we’re fun to work with.
Read MoreIn 2023, we fought politicians working to dismantle public education. We battled funding cuts that impact kids and families. We’ve had our hearts broken daily from escalating violence in Israel-Palestine, Sudan and Ukraine. We demanded paid family leave for all. We struggled to re-envision child care in America. We supported leaders who are exhausted and overwhelmed. Through it all, we’ve remained dedicated to dismantling structural oppression for children and their families.
Read MorePumpkin spice lattes may be taking over our world, but we're already thinking about the spring and making 2024 the best year yet. That's why – by popular demand – we're opening our training opportunities for 2024! Our trainings have been called “an excellent investment." Also: “polished and downright perfect." Here’s a (sampling of) what we’re offering starting in January.
Read MoreWe’re headed to Charlotte this weekend for the National Black Child Development Institute’s national conference! Forthright’s own Michael Ramsey is joining our partners with the North Carolina Coalition for Inclusion, Not Expulsions at the conference. Michael is presenting alongside Coalition members Dr. Valerie Jarvis McMillan of North Carolina State A&T University, and Dr. Nina Smith of North Carolina Central University. They’re sharing about a topic that affects all of our communities: eliminating racial inequities in suspensions and expulsions in early care and education settings.
Read MoreWhen I meet a potential client for the first time, they often ask what our company core values are. I love that question, because we recently gave Forthright’s values a spring cleaning. Our updated set of values are a combination of what those in the leadership biz would call “core values” (cornerstones of deeply ingrained principles we hold dear), as well as “accidental values” (values that came about more spontaneously and reflect our teammates’ personalities as we’ve grown these past four years).
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