Whether your group has a staff of 25 or whether your group is completely run by volunteers, you share a common thread with most environmental organizations today: You're on a tight budget and your resources (staff and time) are limited.
Membership in Green Media Toolshed provides your organization with access to a suite of powerful tools that will save staff time and money. Our tools can help you streamline work processes as well as effectively manage tasks for a small or large group. Most importantly, membership in Green Media Toolshed gives your group access to technology and tools that you can afford and easily use.
How does membership benefit your organization?
The bottom line for any new expense is cost. How will this new tool save my organization money? How will this expense translate into savings, whether in terms of staff time or resources? Will our staff have the time to get trained and actually use it? And ultimately, how will this new tool help my group get the results we need to stay on the forefront of our issues and secure funding for the future?
Membership in Green Media Toolshed can help your group deal with the common hurdles faced by many nonprofit organizations, such as staff turnover. How many days or weeks does staff lose building and maintaining lists of media contacts? How many relationships with reporters are lost when press staff turnover? How many times does your group pay for consultants to develop relationships with the media?
GMT members have access to a robust national media database that is updated daily. Your group can build media lists and send e-mail and fax to reporters while building a history of your press work. Instead of spending time calling through lists to update reporter contact information, your staff will spend time cultivating relationships with reporters and pitching your stories. Every day we work with reporters and producers, gaining valuable bits of information about what kinds of stories the producers are interested in producing as well as pitching tips about how reporters wish to receive information. Our online system fosters the capturing of the data to make it useful for all our members.
GMT members can choose from a number of innovative web enhancement features that work seamlessly with your existing website. When reporters visit your website, they need quick access to media materials, press contact information and photos to use their story. Our tools can help your organization establish an online presence with reporters by providing a fully branded online press room. Your group can also use our customized campaign management tools to become the communications hub for a campaign or coalition. Manage e-mail list serves and provide a secure, private area to store and share files, drafts of documents, photos and a community calendar.
GMT members benefit from access to a cost effective communications infrastructure by paying a yearly membership fee as opposed to paying individually for each media list, printed media directory or updates from computerized media directories. Membership fees also include access, training and technical support for each member of a group's staff. Your group will not have to share passwords or wait to access the system.
GMT members benefit from access to online tools. Whether you're working in the office, from home or on the road, you can do media outreach, manage your press room or work with your campaign or coalition as long as you have access to the Internet. Imagine having the ability to implement rapid response while at a conference or being able to pull up your recent press outreach at a Board meeting.
Finally, GMT members are part of a growing online community. GMT works only with nonprofit organizations with an environmental, conservation or preservation mission. Read our membership requirements to learn more. Green Media Toolshed is a nonprofit organization. Our mission is to provide high quality, affordable media tools to environmental groups so that they can effectively reach their audiences.
How does membership benefit your staff?
Not all organizations have a full-time or even part time communications staff person. Often, media and communications work is shared among a team of folks who may be in the same office or who may be scattered across the state, region or country. Green Media Toolshed's tools have been specifically built for communications staff. We continuously update our tools in order to provide solutions for your needs and challenges. Communications staff are stretched thin and often have several issues to balance. You need an up to date media list and an easy way to distribute your news to those reporters. GMT users will save hours of valuable staff time normally spent manually building and calling through media lists. With access to a database of over 350,000 media contacts that is updated daily and double-checked by a team of researchers, members will get the most up to date data each time they run a query. Along with the data, members will have access to custom pitching tips and editorial calendars that will give them an edge when pitching their story to the media.
Communications staff also need an easy-to-use tool to manage staff making pitch calls, coordinating press events and other media efforts. GMT users have access to new project management tools that help you coordinate with offices in your state, region or across the country. All staffers will have online access to materials, vital reporter data and press clips. Managers can track press calls made by their staffers in Washington, D.C. as well as in Washington state and circulate the media coverage resulting from their efforts. Communications staff can complete a media outreach project from nuts to bolts - from sending out the advisory to compiling the final media report - all within the Green Media Toolshed.
Members will never lose the data they bring to Green Media Toolshed. If a group decides to terminate their membership, the most updated version of the data they originally submitted would be returned to them - plus any additional media contacts the group worked with during their membership.
GMT users can tap into support networks with technology and communications questions. The environmental movement finally has a way to access the competitive tools developed by private industry. Green Media Toolshed provides access not just to our suite of tools but to insights, expertise, weblogs, publications and helpful websites and resources.
Green Media Toolshed will strive to keep the environmental communications staff abreast of the best tools, newest trends and upcoming trainings and events. Green Media Toolshed is a service partner helping you to be more effective at your job. Green Media Toolshed will unobtrusively allow you to prioritize needs as a communications professional and then will work to help you succeed.
GMT users have options. Once your group has joined GMT, you need to learn how to use the tools and you need options to get your questions answered. GMT provides a host of free online trainings as well as free technical support. Our staff is on hand to answer your questions and to provide you with solutions and additional resources.