Telling Our Story Subcategories included in the telling our story category related to communicating impact, communicating with elected officials, oral and written communication, and marketing. Respondents from all institutional types placed communicating impact and marketing as the top two training needs (Table 17). Written communication was ranked third for the 1890 and 1994 Land-grants and fourth for the 1862s. Oral communication ranked fifth for 1862 and 1890 Land-grants and fourth for the 1994s. Communicating with elected officials was the third ranked need for 1862s, fifth for 1890s, and fourth for 1994s. Some of these differences may relate to the context in which these institutional types operate as well as the types of existing relationships they may have with clientele.
Table 17 Training needs ranked from greatest to least based on percent responses associated with Telling Our Story provided by Land- grant institution type.
Institutional Rank from Highest to Lowest % Responses
Telling Our Story Training Subcategories
All Institutions
1862
1890
1994
Communicating impact
1 - 28.87
1 - 29.03
1 - 25.56
1 - 31.58
Marketing
2 - 25.55
2 - 25.65
2 - 24.44
2 - 23.68
Communicating with elected officials
3 - 20.33
3 - 21.01
4 - 16.67
5 - 10.53
Written communication
4 - 14.06
4 - 13.25
3 - 21.11
3 - 21.05
Oral communication
5 - 10.66
5 - 10.46
5 - 12.22
4 - 13.16
Other (please explain)
6 - 0.53
6 - 0.59
No Responses
No Responses
Number of Question Responses
1323
1185
90
38
Explanations of “other” were provided by respondents from 1862 Land-grant institutions. A summarized response from one respondent read “ Putting it all together, understanding how to tell the story to different audiences, identifying the story, blending quant and qual data, making floating pieces of data relevant to people who aren't a part of extension, making others feel like they are contributing to something valuable by supporting extension through story telling .” Another respondent expressed need for tr aining on when and how to engage with local media. Consistency in messaging through social media channels was also expressed. Limitations to be overcome in order to better tell our story included small staff, streamlining data collection, organizing broad content to fit “under one umbrella”, and overcoming challenges of ego over the community benefit. Two responses to other in the overarching training needs which were assigned to this category. One suggests that the university rather than the state has become “the focal point and resource holder that all must funnel through” suggesting an issue which may reduce the ability to communicate impact, especially with elected officials. The second related more to internal communication as the respondent wrote “ Communicating what happens at the community-level to the higher levels of the organization so they understand how to keep Extension programs relevant and what internal support we need to support our communities.”
26
Powered by FlippingBook