by Elizabeth Arledge
Aggregate results from online survey completed by 250 individuals connected to civil legal aid about their organizations' and states' capacities for communications and media advocacy.
In August, 250 individuals connected to civil legal aid – representing 45 states, the District of Columbia, Micronesia and the Virgin Islands – generously took the time to complete our on-line survey about their organizations’ and states’ capacities for communications and media advocacy. Here is the resulting, aggregate snapshot of the civil legal aid sector’s current activities and capacities. We have also compiled state-by-state results, so please let us know if you would like to find out what we learned more specifically about your state.
At the individual program level
- One-fourth of programs (25.8%) have a written communications/media plan for the entire organization.
- One-third of programs (35.7%) have a written communications/media plan for particular departments or issues (e.g., development, legislative advocacy, foreclosure prevention).
- Three-fifths of programs (59.5%) have a communications/media relations director or other in-house staff member with designated responsibilities for communications/media relations activities.
- Of those programs with designated communications staffing:
- About half (47.3%) devote less than 25 percent of a staff member (<.25 FTE) to communications activities.
- One-fourth (23.7%) devote 26-50 percent of a staff member (.26-.5 FTE) to communications activities.
- One-fifth (18.2%) devote 51-100 percent of a staff member (.51-1.0 FTE) to communications activities.
- Of those programs with designated communications staffing:
- One-fourth of programs (24.6%) use a consultant or communications firm to conduct media relations activities.
- In almost all programs that use consultant services (84.8%), the consultant devotes less than 25 percent of her/his time.
- More than half of programs (54.9%) engage in proactive media placement (i.e., pitching stories to specific reporters or media outlets).
- Two-thirds of programs (67.4%) regularly track media coverage for mentions of the organization’s name.
- Four-fifths of programs (82.5%) use social media to communicate about their work, with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as the top social media outlets.
- As for resource and support needs, funding for staff ranked highest, with four-fifths of programs (81.3%) indicating this would be helpful or very helpful. Personal technical assistance (via telephone or email) ranked second, with almost two-thirds (62.8%) rating it helpful or very helpful, followed by online resources (56.6%), in-person training (53.8%), webinars (52.6%), listservs (42.5%), and blogs (27.9%).
At the state level
- Three states (6.3% of the 48 jurisdictions reporting) have a written statewide communications/media plan for the state’s civil legal aid initiatives.
- Ten states (20.8%) have a written statewide communications/media plan for particular aspects of the state’s legal aid initiatives (e.g., development, legislative advocacy).
- Twenty states (41.7%) have a planning committee or working group to coordinate the state’s communications and media activities.
- Twenty-one states (43.8%) have designated staffing for their statewide communications and media activities.
- Fifteen states (31.3%) engage in proactive media placement on a statewide basis.
- Seventeen states (35.4%) regularly track media coverage at the state level about civil legal aid.
- Twenty states (41.7%) use social media to communicate about statewide legal aid initiatives.
- As for resource and support needs, the rankings mirrored those reported by individual organizations (see above), with funding for staff and personal technical assistance rated most highly.
Thanks to all our survey respondents for your help in obtaining this baseline assessment of our community’s current capacity. We’ll put it to good use as we go about strengthening the effectiveness of our media advocacy.
Geographic coverage: NATIONAL, STATE COMPARISONS