Katie Thune is an advocate, a teacher, and the founder of Mad Hatter Wellness—a wellness center for classes, workshops, and retreats that empower children and adults with and without disabilities.
 
She is also a Double Shift Press author!
 
After spending 12 years teaching and advocating for kids with disabilities, Katie has seen firsthand that students need—and teachers want—a comprehensive guide for sex ed in the special education classroom. Sex ed is a tough subject, sure, but because people with disabilities face rates of sexual assault that are seven times higher than other populations, Katie knows it can’t be ignored. Her book offers the necessary guidance on navigating sensitive situations, teaching sexual education, and helping students develop healthy relationships.
 
From Katie’s perspective, kids with disabilities are vulnerable because they aren’t taught about the standards and expectations around boundaries, touch, consent, and healthy relationships. They don’t always recognize what inappropriate behavior, or a “bad touch,” is—even when they engage in it themselves.
 
Her book gives teachers the information, case studies, and curriculum ideas they need to educate students in the special education classroom on sexuality and sexual health.
 
Katie’s work is already having an impact—you may have heard her with Marianne Combs on MPR. Her book will fuel her advocacy and broaden her reach, and it will give readers a practical tool for making a difference in children’s lives.

My (very few) Twitter followers already know that I loved Patricia Lockwood’s essay, “How Do We Write Now?,” published in Tin House, particularly what she calls its “alternate title”: “how the fuck do we write now?”
 
Lockwood is a poet—and a bawdy one—so the vulgarity is allowed, expected even.
 
But she makes a good point. How do we keep going on projects large and small when social and other media relentlessly point out all the ways the world is falling apart?
 
You can try logging off and muting all, which we’ve advocated before. You can also try slowing down and noticing (maybe even appreciating) the unpixelated view out your window, which Lockwood and Jocelyn Glei suggest.
 
But if you’re just putting off a big job or trying to finish a complicated one, you may not need inspiration. You might just need persistence.
 
There are many research-based strategies that promote actual persistence (the kind that follows from engagement). You could, for example, integrate weekly updates into project reporting. Psychology professor Gail Matthews’s study on goal achievement in the workplace found that 70 percent of participants who updated friends weekly on their progress reported goal achievement.
 
Or, you could break down a new project (or what’s left of an old project) into smaller, finite (and thus reachable) goals. By doing so, you manipulate the completion bias—the bias that makes us feel like we’ve accomplished something when we’ve simply made a to-do list—to serve your bigger purpose.
 
Or, you could constrain your project (and yourself) by shortening your timeline. This isn’t always possible (or desirable) for large-scale, multi-team projects. But when projects are given a long lead, scope can creep and focus can become more diffuse. It’s Parkinson’s Law: tasks expand to fill the time allotted for completion.
 
Persistence doesn’t have to be the purgatory of productivity. If none of these strategies work, just follow Lockwood’s lead: go ahead and write a fucking poem.

Our post on beta readers offered a strategy for soliciting structured feedback before project release. But it didn’t discuss strategies for handling that feedback once it arrives in your inbox.
 
Reading criticism is hard. After all, writing requires time and self-expression. No matter how professionally oriented, criticism can sting.
 
But integrating criticism is even harder. It’s never easy to judge which critical feedback is useful and which isn’t.
 
The simplest strategy? Look for repetition.

Repetition can be straightforward. If more than one beta reader (or more than one feedback form) specifies the same weakness, well, it’s a weakness.
 
But repetition can also be oblique. Consider the beta-reader responses to a question that asked about the translation of SME material into everyday language:

• Reader A: “This doesn’t speak to the [product’s] purpose. Can it be cut?”
• Reader B: “John Doe isn’t the right SME here. You should ask Jane Doe.”

The answers differ in content, but they’re the same in kind: This translation isn’t landing.
 
And repetition can be overwhelming. It’s no fun to read about the many different problems with your project. Luckily, these can usually be condensed into just one or two actual issues. For example:

• Wordy 
• Too long
• Complicated
• Confusing
• Broad
• Hard to follow
• Awkward

​These are all different ways of saying that the writing must be more direct to meet readers’ needs.
 
Criticism might not be fun, but it’s so fruitful. And not just for you. Soliciting critical feedback and then actually (and visibly) using it sets in motion a positive feedback loop that strengthens your project, your team, and your business’s commitment to your organizational end game.

While a beta release refers to the rollout of an early, mostly untested version of software, the beta phase (and the iterative form of software development in general) is an excellent way to pretest communications projects, too.
 
Software development usually proceeds from a pre-alpha phase (where R&D is completed), to an alpha phase, (where core functionality is built), to a beta phase, and finally to release.
 
That beta phase is so crucial because it puts the software—usually ugly and incomplete—out into the world. Chosen users can then play with it and provide the targeted feedback so necessary to completing and releasing the work.
 
Communications projects (reports, technical manuals, strategic plans) follow a somewhat similar route. First, there is the research and development; then, the outlining, drafting, and collating; finally, execution and testing.
 
But a beta release is rarely figured into this execution—and it definitely should be.
 
While most of us pay close attention to after-the-fact metrics, a beta release tests whether content is functional in a way that meets readers’ needs before delivery. Communicators can use the release to gain on-the-ground feedback and integrate it into a project ahead of publication.
 
To make the most of this opportunity, make recruiting beta readers (using a generic application like Google Forms to help identify members of your target audience) a part of R&D. Later, when the project is almost complete (but still malleable!) push it to beta readers with another form soliciting the feedback required. Common questions include responses to SME material or to calls to action.
 
For any client-facing project with a long development phase, a beta release creates a space in which meaningful info can be gathering and used. It’s a bit of a time investment, but the payoff makes it absolutely worthwhile.

As anyone in the third sector knows, the 2016 election dramatically altered the landscape in which nonprofits operate. For some, these changes may even pose an existential danger.
 
So, what’s a nonprofit to do? How does an organization strategize in the face of an uncertain future?
 
This isn’t a hypothetical question for some of our clients, who are faced with the necessity of significantly expanding their pool of potential donors and partners. And for faith-based organizations (which face both shrinking government funding and shrinking congregations), connecting with a larger (secular) audience poses unique challenges.
 
Those challenges (and their solutions) provide useful insight for any mission-driven organization.
 
We talked about the challenges of communicating in an uncertain environment with one of our recent clients, Cheryl Behrent, director of Sarah’s… an Oasis for Women. Sarah’s is a Saint Paul-based nonprofit program that provides housing and crucial services for women who have experienced severe violence and trauma. Because it offers a safety net for women who don’t have access to any other resources, Sarah’s works primarily with immigrants, whose position in the United States is increasingly tenuous. And like many other nonprofits, Sarah’s faces an ever-increasing demand for the services.
 
What does the uncertainty of the current landscape mean for Sarah’s message?
 
Cheryl says that flexibility is key. Sarah’s was founded by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, St Paul Province (CSJ). The CSJs and their ministries foundation provide approximately 50% of Sarah’s funding. The other 50% comes from individual donors and grants from private foundations.
 
“When I’m in a church setting or faith-based community, the emphasis is that we’re a ministry—people are naturally interested to hear about the history of the Sisters, and our connection to the Province,” she notes.
 
But as Cheryl points out, it’s important to be able to adopt other frames of reference, depending on the audience. She says, “The CSJs value interfaith connections,” so Sarah’s has always given priority to reaching beyond its primary stakeholders and creating broad connections.
 
That means being adept at considering a wide range of ways that people might find to connect with an organization. For example, Cheryl often prefers to start talks with a Q and A, to understand what her audience’s interests are.
 
This kind of flexibility is predicated on having a solid foundation of clearly defined values and a clearly articulated mission. That foundation gives an organization the ability to adapt its mission statement into an audience-focused positioning statement—that is, a statement that describes why an organization is uniquely qualified to accomplish a goal that a specific audience cares about.
 
That sort of attention to audience is something that’s easy to overlook for nonprofit organizations that are (rightly) focused on accomplishing their core mission. But, as Cheryl recognizes, it’s a key example of the kind of nimble thinking that’s required of nonprofits now more than ever.