1201 16th St., N.W. Washington, DC 20036 Phone: (202) 833-4000 Lily Eskelsen García President Rebecca S. Pringle Vice President Princess R. Moss Secretary-Treasurer John C. Stocks Executive Director MEMO TO: FROM: Lily Eskelsen García, President National Education Association DATE: June 1, 2019 RE: Delegates to the 2019 NEA Representative Assembly NEA Media Campaign Fund Attached is the annual report on the NEA Media Campaign Fund for the 2018 – 2019 NEA fiscal year as required in Bylaw 2-7n. The annual membership dues of active members of the association, as computed pursuant to Bylaw 2-7.a, includes $20 which is allocated to the Ballot Measure/Legislative Crises and Media Campaign Fund. Sixty percent of the dues were allocated to the Ballot Measure/Legislative Crises Fund and are available to assist state affiliates in dealing with ballot measures and legislative crises, and 40 percent of the dues are available for national and state media campaigns. The NEA Media Campaign Fund includes two components. The first provides funding for national campaigns to advance the cause of public education and publicize the role of the association and its affiliates in improving the quality of public education. The second provides funds for grants to NEA state affiliates for communication campaigns created and directed by state associations. This report provides a summary of fund activity since the 2018 NEA Representative Assembly. Attachment NEA MEDIA CAMPAIGN FUND ANNUAL REPORT JUNE 2019 SUMMARY The NEA Media Campaign Fund is allocated into two separate funds, a national campaign fund and a state affiliate campaign assistance fund. The promotional efforts supported by these funds have helped to positively position NEA and its affiliates as leaders in the cause of providing a high quality public education for every student, regardless of ZIP code. Administration of the funds falls under the responsibilities of the NEA Center for Communications (CFC). NATIONAL REDFORED PROMOTIONS Pursuant to actions taken by the NEA Board of Directors, the majority of media campaign funds were re-allocated to provide financial support for the association’s efforts to promote public education and public school educators’ positive work. The remainder of the available funds have supported very specific and targeted promotional efforts. Those expenditures included the continuation of the NEA #RedForEd brand campaign. These efforts highlight the work of our great public schools and rally support for our members, the heroes who work in them each and every day. In particular, these efforts garnered attention, web traffic and energy to help support and encourage actions in support of our members advocating for more resources for their students, increased educator pay, and to ensure our schools are staffed with the professionals our students need. The campaign is anchored by two marquee videos, “Feed the Need” and “Pay It Forward”. “Feed the Need” is the first national ad we’ve run that focuses exclusively on our education support professionals (ESP) members and premiered at the 2019 ESP Conference. “Pay It Forward” highlights the many different roles teachers play in students’ lives. That video launched during Teacher Appreciation Week. This digital campaign includes banner ads and videos on websites, social media, YouTube, Pandora, and Spotify. Finally, additional components of the ads featuring images and videos of our members’ testimonials about why they advocate for their schools and students as well as images from rallies across the country. PUBLIC AND MEMBER ENGAGEMENT AND ADVOCACY The CFC team partnered with the Center for Advocacy on several projects to promote public education initiatives and defend against attacks on public schools and our members. We have used the National Media Fund for our SWAT program, where we partner with state affiliates to support strategic communications campaigns that work to promote and protect public education. The SWAT program provides remote and on the ground communications support through an expert campaign communicator. Opportunities to engage with states come in many forms, but our goal is to increase the short- and long-term capacity of an affiliate while providing strategic and tactical support when they are presented with threats and opportunities. This past year, SWAT campaigns took place in Louisiana in support of their legislative campaign to increase education funding and provide teachers with a raise, while helping to lift the pro-public education efforts of Gov. John Bel Edwards (D-La.); and in Florida where a hostile new governor and legislative leadership presented numerous threats to FEA. Consultants, working hand-in-hand with NEA and affiliate staff, provide strategic guidance and add general communications capacity through media and digital support. NEA MEDIA CAMPAIGN FUND • ANNUAL REPORT • JUNE 2019 3 National media funds supported prominent positioning for NEA in May at the 2019 Education Writers Association conference, the largest annual gathering of journalists on the education beat. This year’s conference featured NEA leaders and members who led a discussion of the future of education unions in a post-Janus world and teacher activism in the #RedForEd movement. The Center for Communications’ team supported the Educator Voice and Professional Supports work by focusing on expanding the breadth and format of content on neaToday.org/school-me to position NEA as a leading resource of professional supports for early career educators. We also support this goal by providing counsel and tips for new and early career educators, especially through having more experienced educators generate content for their less-experienced peers. We’ve promoted this content via digital and social media advertising and the creation and successful launch of a Pinterest board for educators in the first five years of their professions. We’ve also used funds to update the MySchoolMyVoice web presence, drive traffic to the Opportunity Checklist, and create content to encourage ESSA activists to complete the Opportunity Checklist. NEA continues to partner with ParentsTogether to engage and mobilize parents. We have successfully partnered with them to engage parents to sign petitions and contact leaders on a wide range of NEA priorities, and also to help us expand our digital capabilities. With the passage of Janus, the number of organizations that are working to undermine union membership and values has radically increased. We have launched a test Inoculation project with Ohio that will educate opinion leaders, the public, and members on the real values behind the organizations running public campaigns to discredit the union. For the 2018 – 2019 NEA’s Read Across America program, national media funds were used to produce a resource calendar, free to all NEA members and the public, to promote the program and “Celebrate a Nation of Diverse Readers” with reading resources. The National Media Fund also supports the association’s efforts to rebrand the Read Across America program to be more inclusive and not tied to one specific partner. The rebranding will visually demonstrate the association’s emphasis on the need for diverse books by diverse authors in public schools nationwide. ADVANCE RACIAL JUSTICE IN EDUCATION NEA’s Center for Communications worked to support our priority work in Racial Justice in Education through “Shaun Ross: The Unashamed Project,” a series of PSAs and photography that engage the public around hate, bias, and discrimination. The beautifully filmed imagery combined with Shaun Ross’s powerful story as the world’s first male supermodel with albinism provide an uplifting story for students and educators on hate, bias, and acceptance. In response to the Trump administration’s continued attacks NEA partnered with social justice art collectives in creating art builds from parachutes to rally signs to unify and share messages of hope and change. We shared these items with our partners and allies via Facebook, one of our social media properties. We also produced “NEA’s President Social Justice in Education: Confronting the Crisis,” a highly-received keynote deck that uses the Visually Speaking student/educator conversations about race as the foundation. In conjunction with the message and research team, we are researching terminology for identifying racial and ethnic communities to be more inclusive as well as explicit. In the coming weeks, the team will take up research to help us be more explicit in compelling in talking about issues affecting people of color. 4 NEA MEDIA CAMPAIGN FUND • ANNUAL REPORT • JUNE 2019 STATE AFFILIATE ADVERTISING ASSISTANCE PROGRAM When the NEA Representative Assembly established the NEA Media Campaign Fund, 20 percent of the available funds were earmarked for grants to state associations for advertising initiatives and/or expanding the reach and activities of existing state advertising efforts. The NEA Representative Assembly also established a broad-based advisory group to decide how funds are spent and to create guidelines and criteria for making those decisions. State Affiliate Advertising Assistance Advisory Group ƒƒ Hanna Vaandering, NEA Executive Committee member, Oregon ƒƒ Rudolph Burrus, NEA Board of Directors, Pennsylvania ƒƒ Sandra Walker, NEA Board of Directors, Kansas ƒƒ Megan Tuttle, president, New Hampshire ƒƒ Maddie Fennell, executive director, Nebraska ƒƒ Mike Wiser, communications consultant, Oklahoma ƒƒ David Wright, SEAComm President Proxy, Delaware ƒƒ Kyle Leyenberger, communications specialist, Arkansas ƒƒ Michele Prater, communications consultant, Ohio ƒƒ Ramona Oliver, senior director, NEA Center for Communications (Advisory Group chair) Criteria, guidelines, and application forms are distributed annually to state association presidents, executive directors, NEA Board members, and state association communications directors. At the request of NEA state affiliates, the NEA State Media Advisory Group considers and approves grants in the NEA fiscal year in which the grant will be provided. For the 2018 – 2019 NEA fiscal year, the Advisory Group reviewed 12 competitive grant applications submitted by 12 NEA state affiliates. Fund requests totaled $3.444 million; $3.175 million was available. After careful review and a full debate, the Advisory Group fully or partially funded 7 proposals, totaling $1.178 million. These funds were made available to state affiliates during the 2018 – 2019 NEA fiscal year. The remaining balance will carry over to next year. NEA state affiliates that have received funding during the 2017 – 2018 budget year are: ALABAMA EDUCATION ASSOCIATION $120,000 NEA ALASKA $200,000 CONNECTICUT EDUCATION ASSOCIATION $375,000 LOUISIANA ASSOCIATION OF EDUCATORS $122,500 MICHIGAN EDUCATION ASSOCIATION EDUCATION MINNESOTA $65,000 $200,000 NEA RHODE ISLAND $96,000 TOTAL APPROVED for FY2018 – 2019 $1,178,500 * After the printing of this report but before the conclusion of the 2018 – 2019 fiscal year, applications requesting $1.997 million are scheduled to be reviewed. Approvals will be recorded in the next report. NEA MEDIA CAMPAIGN FUND • ANNUAL REPORT • JUNE 2019 5 ENTERPRISE OPERATIONS Digital Tools A key priority of the Enterprise Operations team is to identify and operationalize digital organizing tools that will allow us to effectively and efficiently leverage data to strengthen, personalize, and scale our communication with members and the public alike around the value and the necessity of the association in their lives. As such, the Center for Communications’ team supports a number of Enterprise digital tools, including Action Network, Social Studio, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Each of these platforms are offered to state affiliates and locals to support their efforts to grow and strengthen the connection members, potential members, and education activists have with the union online. Redesign of NEA.org Beginning in January 2019, NEA began looking for a partner to transform the presentation of our multiple website presences to more accurately represent our mission and our diverse membership, and ultimately engage members, potential members, and the public in ensuring the success of every student. Work began in May 2019. 6 NEA MEDIA CAMPAIGN FUND • ANNUAL REPORT • JUNE 2019 nea NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION nea.org Great Public Schools for Every Student National Education Association 1201 16th Street, NW. Washington, DC 20036 nea.org 25592.0519.JR