On November 29th, in Portland, Oregon, the North American Forest Partnership will draw together leaders from across the forest sector and beyond to dig into this very question.
- What rewards and insights will be gained by entering into real conversations and partnerships with different forest stakeholders?
- What can we learn from others’ experience about how best to navigate these waters?
- As individual organizations, as a sector, and as a broad, diverse community, how can we measure the impact and effectiveness of our combined effort to engage our target audiences?
President Obama’s Social Media Director, Caleb Gardner, will lead a discussion designed to get beyond the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ halo of Social Media. Together we’ll map and assess the current ecosystem of communications efforts and the challenges and opportunities that lie before us.
Andy Goodman will coach participants in the science and best practice of effective storytelling, reviewing participants’ communications in real time and helping us craft more effective stories that both engage audiences and build a storytelling culture within our organizations.
We’ll draw from the experience of three very different ‘veterans’ of stakeholder engagement – Thomas Meth from Enviva, Russ Vaagen from Vaagen Brothers Timber and Cathy Enright, the former director of GMO Answers – to explore hard earned lessons, counter-intuitive business outcomes and practical insights from the front-lines.
We’ll explore whether there’s an essential blueprint to effective forest initiatives and look at how our community can better tap the passion of outdoor enthusiasts such as hikers, hunters, bikers and anglers to keep forests as forests.
There’s no one size fits all solution for our membership on the spectrum from basic communications to full-on engagement. But our job at NAFP is to help you ask where you are on that spectrum today, envision where you want to be in the future, and provide a comprehensive ‘plug and play’ toolbox to help you make that journey.
If you are interested in learning more about the event and joining us for a day that will take you deep into that toolbox and investigate the leading edge of effective communications and engagement for the forest sector and community, please contact Rae Tamblyn, NAFP's membership manager at 202-751-2445 or rae@nafpartnership.org.