Mentors for San Diego New Leaders Council in 2010

The New Leaders Council in San Diego (NLC) is proud to announce the selection of our mentors for the 2010 class of Fellows.

Each year through the NLC Institute, Fellows are paired with Mentors who are 10 or more years along the road to where the Fellows themselves want to be in their careers. The Mentors provide guidance for Fellows' professional and civic lives.

The NLC is one of the very few programs for young professionals that provides direct one-on-one career mentorship. Graduates from the NLC Institute routinely describe the mentorship component as among the most valuable parts of the program.

The San Diego NLC chapter is particularly fortunate to have so many Mentors from the very peak of civic leadership in our community. The San Diego Mentors are leaders in business, law, politics, social change, advocacy, education and philanthropy.

New Leaders Council Mentors for San Diego – 2010 Class

Christine Kehoe
California State Senator, 39th District

Rich Lieb
Executive Vice President, Liquid Environmental Solutions

Sherri Neasham
Founder and Chairman at Leadfusion, Inc.

Myrna Zambrano
District Director, California State Senator Christine Kehoe

Lorena Gonzalez
Secretary-Treasurer and CEO for the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL-CIO

Toni Atkins
Former City Councilperson and Acting Mayor of the City of San Diego

Robert Gleason
Chairperson, San Diego Regional Airport Authority; Chief Counsel, Evans Hotels

Vince Hall
Vice President of Public Affairs & Communications, Planned Parenthood of San Diego & Riverside Counties

Susan Shirk
Professor of China and Pacific Relations at IR/PS at the University of California, San Diego

Jerry Butkewitz
Workforce Readiness Manager, Sempra Energy

Alejandra Sotelo-Solis
Vice Mayor, National City

Linda Katz
Founding Member, Women Give San Diego

Darcy C. Bingham
Co-Founder San Diego Social Venture Partners

Bruce Reznick
Executive Director, San Diego Coastkeeper

Shannon Thompson
Founder/Visionary Director, Shakti Rising

Rachel Canno
Deputy District Attorney, County of San Diego

Elisa Marusak Thomson
Executive Director, Outside the Lens

Scott Peters
San Diego Port Commissioner

Marcela Escobar-Eck
Principal, Atlantis Group, LLC

Betsy Kinsley
Chief of Staff, Office of President, San Diego State University

NLC Institute 2010 – Messaging and Communications

It's an old saw in politics and beyond – just being right is never enough. If you can't connect your message to its intended audience and be influential, you're just not going to get very far. Our March 27th session focused on media and communications – how to get the most out of your message.

We opened the morning with a presentation by UCSD Political Science Ph.D. candidate Matt Chidlers on Attitudes, Framing, Messages, and Campaigns. It was an insightful look at what makes people tick and how they process information that carried important lessons. Most important – and the easiest to forget – is that just because people often don't have the energy or interest for details, it doesn't mean they're stupid or easily duped. It's a mistake to confuse low-information with low-intelligence.

Childers also discussed how the context of new information is often far more important than the content. We're far more likely to remember our impressions of what we learn than be able to give a detailed recap. This is what makes framing so important – it presents new information in ways that make sense to how we already understand the world.

Childers closed with a discussion of the tactics and strategy of framing – how to reinforce your own position and respond to your opponents without accepting their premise or frame and without giving them free advertising.

Training segued into our second session of the day about, appropriately, paid advertising. Bob Nelson, principle at BNA Associates, shared decades of experience in the world of mail, print, radio and television.

He discussed the relative uses and merits of different media, and the complexities of maximizing your impact across all available outlets. It's particularly difficult to effectively target your media message in recent years thanks to new technologies – everything from TiVo to Facebook. It makes finding your audience more challenging, but also increasingly important.

Beyond the nuts and bolts of producing and buying media was a discussion of how to maximize the impact of your advertising. Nelson gave a great rundown of the maxims that guide effective ads for TV, radio, print and direct mail, with an eye towards ensuring the message is able to fight through all the competing noise.

During lunch, Chair of the San Diego County Democratic Party Jess Durfee discussed his experiences with the party. It was a good break from the details of media and communications, and a great reminder of why everyone is involved in the first place. He spoke of his personal winding path to arrive as chair of the local party, and delivered important advice: anyone can get engaged.

In explaining his challenges and achievements with the party, that central message was inescapable and compelling. The party is at its strongest when it encompasses a wide range of people with diverse backgrounds and interests brought together by a shared passion for their community. Being an effective community leader is for anyone who's committed to it, no matter how they arrive at that point.

The afternoon presentation on press and crisis communication was given by Jamie Ortiz, Communications Director at San Diego Coastkeeper. Ortiz is a long-time Public Relations professional, who cut her teeth in the private sector, and is now using her skills to advocate for the environment.

Ortiz discussed the tools of the trade for pitching stories and getting press coverage. She discussed how to tailor pitches to specific outlets, and how to develop relationships with reporters before those relationships need to be tapped. She also outlined the fundamentals of developing a press kit, so your events, organizations or candidates are covered how you want them to be.

Ortiz finished the day by walking the Fellows through the process of building a crisis communications plan.

Planning can be the key to weathering a crisis. Ortiz cited a telling statistic that while 85% of communications managers for Fortune 100 companies have crisis communications plans, only a third have tested how their plans function.

Developing a crisis plan for an organization requires identification of stakeholders, determining who will speak for the organization, and articulating how the organization will solve whatever crisis develops. Ortiz circulated some useful worksheets and checklists for the Fellows to use in their own organizations to develop their own crisis communications plan.

NLC Institute 2010 – Fundraising

The New Leaders Council of San Diego (NLC) held its Fundraising session on the March 6, 2010. Fundraising is a key part of being a political candidate or as a board member of a nonprofit, and many civic leaders fundraise for their favorite candidates and causes. NLC Fellows learned some tips and tricks to effective fundraising to better prepare them to be leaders in their community.

The session began by an overview presentation by Kelli Maruccia, of KM Strategies, one of the premier nonprofit and political fundraisers in San Diego. Maruccia discussed the basics of candidate and events-based fundraising, using a presentation model she’s given to the Democratic Party of San Diego County.

Maruccia explained that San Diego’s political fundraising culture is unusually events-based, requiring significant amounts of time and resources for campaigns. She also outlined the general time requirements that candidates must spend raising money over the phone in order to raise adequate funds to be competitive. Fellows had an opportunity to discuss their own fundraising experiences, in campaigns and non-profit work, and to ask for guidance and suggestions form Maruccia.

During the lunch hour, the Fellows had a discussion with Robert Gleason, the chairperson of the San Diego Regional Airport Authority. Gleason is a significant fundraiser for political candidates, non-profits, and arts organizations. He shared some of his tips on cultivating donors, and how to identify how potential donors would be interested in contributing.

After lunch, the Fellows heard from John Fanestil, the Executive Director of the San Diego Foundation for Change. Fanestil described the process of soliciting major gifts to nonprofits and campaigns.

A key take-away point from Fanestil is that a major gift should be only a point along a continuum of a relationship between an organization and a donor. The organization needs to understand what motivates a donor, and identify how that organization can satisfy that donor’s interests.

Fanestil also explained how nonprofit boards function, and how the crafting of a shared mission statement can unify a board and help it reach out to the wider community to raise funds. He provided the Fellows with a simple worksheet that they could use to start identifying the key components of their respective organizations, to help craft a mission statement for their own boards.

After the formal training ended, the Fellows attended a mixer with the San Diego Lawyer’s Chapter of the American Constitution Society (ACS). The ACS is an organization dedicated to advancing a progressive view of law and policy. It’s members are made up of lawyers, law professors, students, judges and policy professionals. Several of the NLC Fellows are also board members of the local ACS chapter.

NLC Institute 2010 – Political Marketing

The New Leaders Council of San Diego (NLC) held its Political Marketing session on the February 21st, 2010.

Training began with an overview of the theoretical architecture of modern polling. Campaign veteran and UCSD Political Science Ph.D. candidate Travis Knowles presented for two hours on the why’s and how’s of polling.

Campaigns and organizations poll for a number of reasons. Polling can identify what your audience wants, and it can track how attitudes change. But not all polls are the same. Some polls have higher margins of errors and some have questions or weighting that biases the results. Knowles ran through some of the key indicators of polling reliability.

Later in the morning, the Fellows heard from Scott Barrett and Colin Rice with Elevate Communications about voter targeting.

The basic questions in targeting are “Who do you speak to?” and “What do you say?” The answer to these questions can be found through a number of resources, including a voter file, opposition research and polling. A voter file can help narrow a universe of potential voters to only those that are likely either to vote, or to vote for your candidate or issue. Opposition research can identify weaknesses in any candidate. Polling can show what motivates voters in a particular district to vote.

Rice and Barrett focused on “movers and switchers,” or people you can bring to you. They also explained their philosophy that any credible candidate can find the right set of voters to win an election.

NLC Co-Director Evan McLaughlin spoke with the Fellows during their lunch session about the history and current direction of the labor movement. The presentation was stylized as a condensed version of the San Diego and Imperial County Labor Council’s Labor 101 training. McLaughlin started with the overarching questions of “What is a labor union, and why do we need them?" He followed up with some real world examples of how labor unions affect the lives of workers, and those who patronize companies with unionized workforces. McLaughlin also identified some of the current public policy issues labor is dealing with locally, including project labor agreements and living wage ordinances.

After lunch, McLaughlin transitioned to a discussion about methods of voter contact. He identified some of the key methods of voter contact, including mail pieces, precinct walking and telephone outreach. Each methods have different values. For instance, direct mail is useful for persuading voters, but not in turning them out to the polls on election day.

McLaughlin also showed some examples of local voter mail pieces from the 2008 election cycle. He explained how each element was crafted to appeal to specific audiences, and he showed the Fellows how to structure their communications to their audiences in a useful and targeted manner.

NLC Institute 2010 – Public Speaking

The New Leaders Council of San Diego (NLC) held its Public Speaking Institute session on February 6th, 2010.

The training was lead by Courtney Knapp, a professional public speaking trainer with Allegory, Inc. Allegory’s business is to train CEO’s, political candidates, and non-profit leaders on how to make effective presentations to audiences of all sizes.

Knapp focused on some key tools. An important and easy tip is for speakers to mentally focus on what they like about their audience. This helps the speaker generate an authentic warmth. Plus, it helps the speaker get out of their own head, and focused on the listener. Physical tools like pumping ones legs, or opening and closing ones fists are proven methods for loosening up speakers to give a comfortable presentation.

The Fellows took turns giving impromptu speeches to the class. Knapp made useful suggestions along the way so Fellows could retool their style midstream.

Some discussion also included the structure of presentations. Fellows were told to ask themselves about who is in their audience, and what their audience wants. Presentations are most useful if the target two to three points for listeners to walk away with, and special focus is needed for a presentation’s close.

After Knapp’s presentation, the Fellows left for a social mixer co-hosted with the Center for Policy Initiatives, a think tank focused on issues for working people. Fellows mingled with labor leaders, employment lawyers and others committed to workplace justice in San Diego.