Training Three days
Communications Workshop
Three hands-on days for the people who run an association's communications. Strategy and brand first, then content and channels, then press, politics, and crisis, ending with a plan each team takes home.
Schedule a Session With Your TeamThe Curriculum
Strategy, content, and pressure, in that order.
Built on the communications workshops and training academies Braden Frame has taught for fire fighter associations at the state and international level.
Day One
Strategy, brand, and message
Communications Strategies, Messages, and Brands
What a communications program is for, and how strategy, message, and brand fit together.
Your Association's Brand
What the public already believes about the people who do the job, and how to keep one consistent identity.
Message Development and Message Discipline
Building the message, then staying on it across every officer, post, and interview.
Proactive Communications
Setting the agenda instead of answering for it, with a communications calendar that keeps you ahead.
Improving Internal Communications
Reaching and engaging your own members first.
Social Media: Legal, Moral, and Common Sense
Where the lines are for the association and for the members who post.
Group Work: Developing Brand Ideas
Teams build brand and message ideas for their own associations.
Day Two
Content and channels
The Platforms That Matter
What each social platform is good for and how to run an association presence on it.
Creating Content for Social Media
Posts people stop for: writing, format, and timing.
A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words
Taking usable photos, plus basic photo editing and graphic design.
Video Production: Planning and Recording
Planning a short video and shooting it with the equipment you already own.
Video Production: Editing
A hands-on exercise that takes raw footage to a finished piece.
News Releases, Statements, and Other Communications
Professional writing for the documents an association actually sends.
Developing and Pitching Stories
Finding the story in your brand, purpose, and message, and getting it covered.
Advertising: Moving Beyond the Boost
Traditional and digital advertising options, ads and insights, and where a small budget goes furthest.
Day Three
Politics, press, and pressure
Political Communications and Campaigns
How communications and political action work as one program.
Media 101
How newsrooms work, what reporters need, and how to handle unfriendly coverage.
The On-Camera Interview
Practice interviews on camera with review and coaching.
Crisis Communications 101
Planning for the bad day, and how to pivot and stay on message when it arrives.
Introduction to Strategic Planning
The tools to turn three days of ideas into a strategy.
Mock News Conference
Teams put the week together in front of a room of questions.
Putting It All Together
Each team finishes a plan and a communications calendar to take home.
Bring the Communications Workshop to your association.
We run the workshop on site for state associations, districts, and larger locals. It is hands-on throughout, so participants work on their own association's material.
Schedule Your Local Training SessionMore training
One day
PAC 101
Starting a PAC, endorsements, fundraising, compliance, and the year-round program that makes a local political operation win.
See the curriculumWorkshop
Owning Your Message
How strategic, political, and crisis communications make your association the trusted voice of public safety in your community.
See the curriculumTwo days
Public Speaking
Two days of coached, on-your-feet practice at the podium and on camera for association leaders, spokespeople, and candidates.
See the curriculumChart your course to victory.
Schedule a custom strategy session with a Cartographer and get a data-driven read on your race, your terrain, and your path to a win.