Convincing my board this work is valuable is an incredible challenge. They have an incredibly naive view that people should simply believe that what we are doing is good and right. Grantmakers are in an interesting position when it comes to strategic communications. The grantmakers interviewed for this study cited an explosion of community needs which they believe are more important than communications. According to one grantmaker, an inability to measure tangible results from communications efforts fuels their reluctance.
Media campaigns tend to be very large, very expensive and run over a wide span of time.
Sometimes the final data of whether or not they work is often soft so that when push comes to shove no one is going to invest their dollars in that. So they support the exhibit, but they didn't help us to reach people with the message of the exhibit. It also provided marketing and media consultation services to all community organizations except those in the arts, who could seek such support from the group Business Volunteers for the Arts. The organization was never able to secure funding from corporate foundations. These factors led to CMMC's demise.