Guide to Grantee Communications

Receiving a grant can be a perfect time to communicate with your staff, leadership, volunteers, donors, participants, and the media.

1. Celebrate with staff—they’ll help spread the good news through their own channels and circles of influence.
2. Tell your community—post the news on your website, social media (make sure to tag us@!), and in other publications. (Use the MCF logo when appropriate and send us a high-resolution version of your logo.)
3. Send an editorial or press release to the media sharing the grant’s impact on the community.
4. Send a letter or email to supporters, board members, and friends highlighting the grant’s purpose and value.
5. Host a reception or open house for the community to help celebrate your award.
6. Use it as a development spark to approach existing or potential donors.
7. Include the grant as an item on your next board meeting agenda.
8. Create a flyer specific to the project and highlight the grant funding.
9. Send us great photography/videography: We often use high-quality photos and videos of grants in action, their impact, etc.
10. Invite us to grant-related events—we can help spread the word through our channels, assign photographers/videographers to capture the event, and more.

Building a solid and ongoing relationship and fruitful interactions with the media is an important strategy for effective communications.

• Focus your message. The receipt of a grant may not be interesting to people in and of itself. Instead, identify the one, single most important benefit of the grant to your organization and the community. Pull out three key points that support that one benefit. Use that information to focus and tell your story.

• Keep it simple (and understanding). Reporters and editors are busy, so try to communicate your message quickly and directly. Tell them your story using your key points, offer a human interest angle, suggest ideas for photography, and share your thoughts on why their audience might be interested. If it doesn’t work out this time, don’t give up. Call again when you have other news to share.

• Stay away from jargon or acronyms. This can be especially difficult when sharing certain kinds of information, but it’s essential to connect with your audience.

When submitting a press release, please include this boilerplate description: Madison Community Foundation's mission is to enhance the common good through philanthropy. Community Impact grants, made possible by donors who support the Community Impact Fund, invest nearly $2 million each year in learning, arts and culture, community development, environment, and nonprofit capacity building. To learn more, visit www.madisongives.org.

When in doubt, ACT (an acronym to use as a guide for posts)

Ask: Ask yourself who your audience is and who would be interested in the post. Are you engaging with that audience? Does the content of your post appeal to that audience?

Create: Create a post that is clearly communicated. Read it out loud to be sure. Also, make sure the content is concise, words are spelled correctly and the post shows your personality/voice.

Tag: Tagging companies or social influencers helps make connections and gives your post more impressions. Be sure to use the “@” symbol before a name to allow the option to tag.

We encourage you to acknowlege Madison Community Foundation on any materials related to your grant with the following language:

This project was funded (or funded in part) by a grant from Madison Community Foundation.

Style Guide for Logo Usage

Logos for Print

Logos for Web