Charitable Advisors When Kids Wrote the Headlines Link: - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Lynn Sygiel Editor Charitable Advisors

“When Kids Wrote the Headlines”

Link: WFYI.org/ce-yp

Storytelling Resources

• Framing Stories for Change by Nat Kendall-Taylor
• Frameworks: culture – shared patterns of thinking -- is always mediating our meaning.

– You say, they think. How people use culture to think about our issues.

East 10th Street: Miracle Place

• Elementary students from the

Indianapolis Near Eastside worked with high school students to create audio slideshows about life along the East 10th Street area.

• A ollaboration between Y-Press and

Second Story, two nonprofit

• rganizations that work with kids on

journalism and creative writing.

Audio Slideshows

Subject Matters

Link: WFYI.org/ce-yp/subjectmatters

Skills

• Documentary video clips for educator use

Questioning Interviewing Developing story angles

Leah Goldstein Associate Director, Prozdor Director, Jewish Teen Foundation of Greater Boston

Social Media

• Why?
• What is being used?
• Who is our audience?
• Teens
• Adults [parents]
• Fellow educators [and clergy] in the community
• When (are we supposed to use it)?

Examples: Highlighting Teens

(with photos + quotes) on social media

Examples: Highlighting Teens

• Always have teens’ permission for photos and quotes

[have the participant and their parents sign a waiver at the beginning of the year to cover all of your bases]

• Avoid stock photos on social media [real pictures of

people the audience may know is much more captivating]

• Always include [working] links to provide more

information

• Have partner/host organizations “share” your posts

How do we tell our story?

• This is the most important question [I ask my teens this at least once a

week]!

• I say… “If you love JTFGB [our program] so much, how can you talk about it

to others? Don’t you want to tell the story of it to the community? Your peers? Your parents? Your teachers? Anyone from other parts of your life?”

• I say… “Use your OWN voice.”
• As the educator and program director, people don’t want to hear MY voice.
• However, I still occasionally write my own blog posts (I love to write and am constantly inspired

by the teens’ work, so I just can’t help myself).

• Everything sounds better and more interesting coming from the teens—

especially if it is a program for them.

Telling Our Story…

• Blogging and Vlogging
• Find a community platform (a type of umbrella organization or website) to host your

blog or have a page for your organization

• We use JewishBoston.com
• Have the teens write or record the post—but as the program director, you can take the

lead of getting it on to the website to ensure it is done correctly

• A quick read-through and edit before it gets posted it is always a good idea
• As you edit it, be sure to not change the voice of the post too much and that it still

takes on that of a teen

• Accountability: have it be a requirement for [some of] your teens to blog, vlog, share on

social media, etc. as part of their participation within the program

• My Leadership Council teens have made a commitment to doing that this year

[Teen] Voices of JTFGB on JewishBoston.com

JewishBoston.com homepage: The JTFGB page is completely customizable with different tabs [events, blogs, contact, etc.]:

Ashley Rodriguez Coordinator Youth Funding Youth Ideas

Infographics

• We started using infographics in 2015 to create

youth-friendly data reports.

• Came across Pikto Chart!
• Pikto Chart is an easy infographic design app that

requires very little effort to produce high quality graphics.

• We now use Pikto Chart to create newsletter

infographics, flyers, and presentations.

• There is a free and PRO version.
• We highly recommend folks use the PRO. Costs $40

for a year subscription

Creating an Infographic

1. Practice by using their themes first 2. Make it simple! The less info the better 3. Train your youth to use Pikto Chart 4. Be creative

Newsletter Strategy

• YFYI uses mailchimp for our newsletter
• Started with 131 subscribers and now have 431
• 94 opens compared to 430 (duplicated)
• Mailchimp will produce reports on your newsletter activity (i.e. total opens, top

subscribers, etc)

Strategy

• We release our newsletter monthly - on the 2nd Wednesday of the month between 3-5pm
• The youth in our program decide the theme of the month for our newsletter
• Content is very uniform but overtime has been simplified to include less information and more images
• Mail chimp also allows you to develop your own template
• Through trial and error AND with the help of mailchimp we figured out the time that receives the most opens

Feb 2015 Sept 2017

Newsletter Content

• We make our newsletter very relevant to what is happening around us. Our newsletters have been

focused on seasons (Black Lives Matter, dedicated to Mom and Fathers, Bees, YFYI changes, Standing Rock, migration, etc.).

• Content includes:

○ Opening Picture ○ Opening Description/Paragraph ○ Infographic ○ Youth/Employee Interview Spotlight ○ Resources (as needed) ○ Closing Picture

Example

Name - In Bloom (with a bunch of flower emojis) Theme - Spring and Resilience

PLUS JOB RESOURCES

Elijah Washington Founder Youth Giving Back

Facebook

Instagram

Snapchat