Using Your Logic Model to Enhance and Inform Your Communications Toolkit

Think quickly! You have only 15 minutes to brief your new Superintendent, School Board, or University President on your grant program. What do you grab? You might have thought about a one-pager or maybe even your grant application. But what about your logic model? Your logic model can be an essential communications tool:

• It’s a visual representation of a complex program or initiative. For someone not involved in the day-to-day work, a logic model can be useful to see the grant “at a glance.” It can also serve as a grounding point for further conversation with stakeholders.
• It’s a great leave-behind. When meeting with policymakers or potential funders, you want to share easily digestible resources, such as a logic model, that they can keep after the meeting. Depending on your audience and the complexity and detail of your logic model, you may want to consider simplifying it to focus on your strategies, outputs, and outcomes.

Logic models can help ground conversations, but they can also help you identify additional information to share. Below, we take a sample line of a logic model (see Figure 1) and then detail how you can use it to inform your communications:

Highlight strategies and outputs in communications.

Look at the strategies you have identified in your logic model. How can you highlight strategies in your communications to elevate interest and engagement? For example, consider sharing photos from events, profiling educators involved in the work, guest blogging, or encouraging the local paper to highlight current efforts. Identify key opportunities for highlighting the work and integrate that into your communications plan.

Sample Media Related to Mock Logic Model:

• Blog post or profile of the new coaching approach
• Photos from trainings
• Announcement of release of toolkit
• Video or written profile of coach and new teacher

Share outputs and short-term outcomes.

The outputs and outcomes you identify in your logic model can help inform which pieces of data may be useful to share with stakeholders—such as number of teachers attending a training, recruitment data, aggregated survey results, perception data, or short-term achievement data—to highlight short-term results. Use this information in annual reports, presentations to stakeholders, and on social media. You can use free or inexpensive online tools to create social media graphics for you and other stakeholders to use.

Data Examples Related to Mock Logic Model:

• Percentage of coaches reporting confidence in their coaching ability
• Percentage of teachers reporting their coach is effective in supporting their development
• Percentage of teachers feeling supported as first-year teacher
• Number of PK-12 students receiving instruction from a new, supported teacher
• Short-term achievement data of teachers

Use long-term outcomes to inform your elevator pitch.

An elevator pitch is a quick 30-second summary of the grant designed to spark interest. In the pitch, you want to share why you are engaged in the work, so couple a compelling anecdote with the long-term outcomes to make your pitch memorable and resonate with your audience.

Sample Elevator Pitch Text Related to Mock Logic Model:

• "We want our teachers to stay... By investing resources in our teachers, our actions speak louder than our words."
• "Our students can't wait; they need effective educators now. By providing opportunities for current educators to take leadership roles supporting new educators, we anticipate increased retention, improved student climate, and increased student achievement."

Next question: If you, a team member, or a partner organization had to pull materials together quickly, would they find everything in a central location? Having a communications toolkit with project collateral and templates can be a way to make communications more convenient and more consistent across stakeholders The toolkit is not the same as a communications plan; whereas the communications plan includes the details of what to communicate, when, how, and to whom, the toolkit includes some of the media used to support execution of the communications plan. Our new resource, Creating a Communications Toolkit, can help you build your own toolkit, which of course includes your logic model as a central piece.

What’s in your communications toolkit? Let us know at eed-ta@aemcorp.com or Tweet your answer using #sustainEED!