Age gaps exist all across the organization. 

From your eager intern to your seasoned board members (and your program staff to your executive director), you're likely communicating across up to 40 years of generational differences. 

Here are some tips and tricks to help you stay aligned.

When we launched our research process – the one that led to our new Frenemies + Jargon: Breaking the Habits That Stall Child and Family Advocacy report – I had suspicions about what we’d find.

We heard that as a field, we’re often fake friends. 

Let’s break down what we heard and what we can do about it.

Our average coaching client is a communications director. For the sake of this blog, let’s call her Chloe.

Chloe typically works at a public school district, a foundation or a nonprofit. 

She landed in her director role coming from the policy, program or development team. She may only have a few years of direct communications experience, but she’s a natural. 

Most of the time, she’s a team of one, and she’s carrying everything communications for her organization. 

That’s where we step in as a coach.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes peek at what we normally help out with.

So, you need to tell your board of directors or your school board some bad news.

First, blerg. Sorry about that! 

Second, we’re here to help.

I've had the opportunity to be involved in some excellent examples of how to do this well – and, unfortunately, I’ve also had to help clean up a few, um… shall we say, less-than-stellar attempts.

Here is a key approach that I’ve seen work well over the years. 

We know that right now, the families you serve, the partners you need, the funders you want to attract and the policymakers who need to know your work have completely changed how they use the internet.

The way they use conversational search on platforms like ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews, and Gemini means we simply need to make sure your organization is the trusted AI citation your audiences find.

My cats have me trained. 

Yeah, you read that right. 

THEY trained ME. 

Are we suckers? Oh, absolutely. No question.

Yet, there are some very solid communications lessons to be learned from being a human… trained by… a cat. Here’s what we can all learn.

We’re so used to chasing perfect. Perfection in our work, presenting the perfect image online.

But the thing is, people are tired of perfect. And that needs to impact the way we do our work and the way we advocate. Here’s what’s going on – and what to do about it. 

I’m the first to admit it: I’m a nerd for data. 

If something is going wrong – I want to know why, so I can fix it. 

If something is going well – I want to know why, so I can keep doing it. 

That’s why I love a good communications audit. Here’s why you should join me in my nerd-dom and hop on the communications audit train.

An organization (yours, in fact) needs a succinct and centralized set of messages that say what the organization does and how you do it. 

When done well, core messages are data-backed ways to describe your work that everyone uses when they talk about your organization. 

They typically tell a cohesive story about your organization. You’ll want them to include why you exist (what needs are you fulfilling?), what your mission and vision are, and how you accomplish them.

We’re sharing more about core messaging and how to get it right here.

A couple of weeks ago, I put on my voting shirt (yes, I have one) and headed to vote in Virginia’s special election.

Leading up to the vote, I got So. Many. Campaign. Messages. 

The problem? Most of them were unconvincing. It made me think about just how important special elections and bond campaigns are. 

That’s why today, I’m sharing best practices about what’s working right now for special elections and bond campaigns. 

It’s 2026 and I’m wearing a party hat – because today, Forthright officially turns eight years old.

When we learned that the traditional present for an eighth anniversary is pottery, it felt perfect – and it got me thinking about all the connections between my work as a leader and my work as a potter.

I’m sharing more (and celebrating our team and anniversary) here.

A couple of weeks ago, Zoe and I presented at the Pennsylvania Family Leadership conference. They invited us to speak about the power of storytelling. We walked through how storytelling can make a difference, best practices for setting up (or expanding!) a storytelling program and how to create smart storytelling practices. 

We focused on how to ensure family leaders have what they need to succeed in storytelling. One family leader mentioned that while she has shared her story dozens of times, only one nonprofit ever truly prepared her. 

That’s why I’m sharing some of our tips below! 

A lack of onboarding doesn’t just affect the new hire. It  slows down our colleagues who rely on new teammates, and it has an impact on the people we serve, too. It sets a sink-or-swim tone that leads to high turnover and burnout that we all want to avoid. 

The data tells us all that we need to know about why onboarding matters so much. Here, we’re sharing the data and tips you can use to create a smart onboarding plan.

Your team is working really hard. You know what? I’ll say it. Too hard. They’re surrounded by uncertainty, harm and crises. You’re facing staffing changes. (And we’re seeing an unprecedented spike in leadership turnover, too.) The landscape you’re working in is constantly evolving. It’s so easy for your team morale to take a hit when just one of these things occur.

But when all of them are happening all at once? It’s time to focus on improving your team morale. 

You want your team to feel energized and hopeful, knowing their vital role contributes to the bigger picture.

How? Well, here are a few morale-boosters workshops we have hosted for various teams (including our own): 

Today, it isn’t good enough to just throw your information up on the web and make sure it has the keywords you know your audience searches for. 

Instead, you need to intentionally lay out information so that it appears in AI search summaries (like Google's AI overviews) and comes up in the right AI search answers. Recent research from UPCEA shows generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews shape how people gather information, verify details and form opinions.

You pour massive energy into creating beautiful, data-rich resources for your campaigns. It’s heartbreaking when those tools do not reach the families and policymakers who need them most. 

So… let’s fix that, shall we? 

Thinking about speaking at a conference? It’s one of the best ways to build your organization’s brand and share your expertise. 

But getting your session idea accepted can feel like a total mystery.

That’s what we’re here for.

This is your simple, four-step guide to help you find the right conference and write a proposal that gets a big, enthusiastic YES.

As part of our client partnerships, we conduct research. This looks like stakeholder interviews, surveys, full communications audits… you name it, we’ve likely done it. 

Every now and again, we see a trend emerging. And this is one of those times. Over the past couple of years, we’ve heard more and more about the power of personal relationships. 

Here’s what we’ve learned – and what to do about it.

We all want to do our best work. But our brains have a literal limit on how much fuel they have for deep thinking. When we’re always on, constantly distracted or simply switching tasks, we slow ourselves down and drain our energy... fast. For example, research from the University of Chicago found that just having a smartphone nearby reduces our “available cognitive capacity.” 

That’s precious brain space we’re wasting. As child and family advocates, we don’t have that kind of energy to spare right now. 

Let’s protect our headspace instead.

Here’s how.