We make grants to help transform journalism and communities.

February 3, 2009

Happy Birthday, Bud!

Filed under: Communications — Kristen Taylor @ 5:03 pm

Larry “Bud” Meyer retired February 1st after fourteen years at Knight Foundation. You can find more about his accomplishments on his retirement announcement. He is board chairman of the Communications Network, a national nonprofit with 324 members dedicated to promoting strategic communications in U.S. philanthropy.

We miss him here in the office and wanted to send birthday wishes his way, so we made a short video:

Happy Birthday, Bud!

December 30, 2008

Knight President Alberto Ibargüen Addresses Economic Outlook

Filed under: Communications, Philanthropy — Kristen Taylor @ 12:33 pm

Knight Foundation President Alberto Ibargüen addresses the economic outlook in a video (here’s the transcript): Some key points are listed below the video.

First, let me repeat what we’ve discussed with many of you individually: while we have taken our losses, the foundation remains quite strong.

I’m especially pleased to be able to assure you that Knight Foundation will honor all existing pledges and grants. We foresee no liquidity issues for the Foundation.

We’ve been well served by a long-standing policy of asset diversification, directed by an outstanding Investment Committee and our outside investment manager.

And we expect to be well positioned when the markets recover.

Thoughts? Other things you would like answered? Let us know in the comments.

December 11, 2008

Follow @knightfdn on Twitter

Filed under: Communications — Kristen Taylor @ 7:09 pm

Another way to find out what Knight is working on and thinking about: follow our Twitter feed for Knight Foundation and the Twitter for our new community site, Knight Pulse.

Below, a screenshot of recent tweets (the parlance for Twitter updates); today, a link to Knight Stanford Fellow Andrew Haeg’s (@andrewhaeg) Twitter group, Change Journalism.

Twitter: @knightfdn updates this week

Some other journalism Twitter feeds that @knightfdn has linked to lately:

CUNY Journalism School

themediaisdying

The Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard

Knight Digital Media Center

Your favorite Twitterers? Help us make a Twitter list in the comments.

November 18, 2008

Need Help Writing News Releases?

Filed under: Communications — Kristen Taylor @ 10:42 am

Knight has just launched a new site, News Release Workshop to help you write a strong press release.

On the site, you will find example press releases (here’s another), a structural worksheet, and why the Flesch Score matters.

Knight News Release Workshop

All site content is under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works license, so we hope you will share it (with attribution, please).

Thoughts? How can we improve the site to make it a better resource for you?

September 25, 2008

Communications Network Conference 2008 Begins in Chicago

Filed under: Communications — Kristen Taylor @ 9:19 am

The 2008 Communications Network Conference, a group of philanthropy professionals who work in communications, began last night in Chicago.

Chair of the Network, Larry Meyer (pictured below at left) and Senior Communication Officer and Secretary at Knight Foundation, introduced Ira Glass, who explained how his wildly successful NPR (and Showtime) show This American Life uses narrative hooks to “cunningly” engage listeners around issues they might not otherwise care about.

bud meyer, chair of communications network

Everyone was still abuzz about his talk this morning at breakfast;

breakfast at the communications network conference 2008

to follow the events, the conference Twitter tag is #comnet08 and the conference blog has more details about sessions and speakers.


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