WMAN Hot Topic and Skill-Building Webinars and Lectures 2016

Storytelling as a Persuasion Tool  |  Thursday, February 4, 2016, 11:00 a.m. to Noon Pacific

Brain science shows that we make decisions based on feelings, not facts. Turning facts into narratives that evoke emotions is a way to make your work more resonant, and relevant, to audiences ranging from policymakers to supporters.  In this training on powerful and persuasive storytelling, Liz Banse from Resource Media will share ways to include narrative elements in your communications on mining, from presentations to PowerPoints to reports.

Visual Communication Strategy and Practice |  Thursday, February 11, 2016, 11:00 a.m to Noon Pacific

Photos and video can do so much more than words alone when you are trying to affect your audience’s views or behavior, but which image should you select for your web page, Facebook post, flyer, mailer, or online ad?  What draws eyes?  And how do you get people to keep watching your video all the way until the end?  What delivers an impact that’s memorable rather than missed?  What gets people to click? To act?  What doesn’t?  In this webinar, Liz Banse from Resource Media will draw on recent research and examples from the field to teach key lessons on effective visual communications that will help you answer these questions for your mining campaigns.

Mineral Withdrawal as an Advocacy Tool: Legal Basis and Lessons from the Grand Canyon Campaign | Wednesday, April 6, 2016, 11:00 a.m. to Noon Mountain

This WMAN “Hot Topic” lecture will include a legal overview of the use of mineral withdrawals by Roger Flynn of the Western Mining Action Project and a case study of the Grand Canyon withdrawal presented by Anne Mariah Tapp of the Grand Canyon Trust.  There will be time allotted for your questions.

Introduction to Twitter Training | Wednesday, May 11, 2016, 10:00 to 11:00 a.m Pacific

To build your base of support for your cause or to reach reporters or elected officials, you often need to take your message to the places where the people you want to reach hang out. While in person is always best, increasingly you can find those like- minded people on social media networks like Facebook, Twitter and topic-specific online communities. Like fundraising or in-person organizing, social networking is all about connecting with people around shared interests. It’s about building relationships and providing supporters with value through your content.

In this introduction to Twitter, you will not only learn to “speak in tweets” and open yourself up to this world of up-to-the-minute news, but you will also learn how to set up an account and grow a following on Twitter. In addition, we’ll teach you how to engage directly with elected officials and reporters via Twitter. We will reserve plenty of time at the end of the webinar to answer any questions you have.

Advanced Twitter Training | Tuesday, May 17, 2016, Noon to 1:00 p.m. Pacific

To build your base of support for your cause or to reach reporters or elected officials, you often need to take your message to the places where the people you want to reach hang out. While in person is always best, increasingly you can find those like- minded people on social media networks like Facebook, Twitter and topic-specific online communities. Like fundraising or in-person organizing, social networking is all about connecting with people around shared interests. It’s aboutbuilding relationships and providing supporters with value through your content.

In this training for intermediate to advanced Twitter users, we will talk about creating more engaged communities, tracking your progress with analytics, and super charging your Twitter content with the latest best practices. We’ll stay on for an extra 30 minutes after the webinar ends to answer your specific, advanced-level questions you have!

Crisis Management/Communications Training | Wednesday, June 15, 2016, 10:00 to 11:00 a.m., Pacific

A massive tailings dam failure occurs at a mine site that you are watchdogging and the media is finally ready to hear your concerns about their waste disposal methods. A bookkeeper embezzles money from your nonprofit, and you file a police report, and the local TV station calls to interview you. As the saying goes, “credibility is earned in drops and lost in buckets.” Do you have a crisis communications plan in place, with staff who speak to the public and media trained on how to respond? During this webinar, Resource Media will walk you through several high profile nonprofit crises, how the organizations successfully (and unsuccessfully) responded, and what you can learn. Finally, we’ll help you create a crisis communications plan that can be quickly adapted and applied to any public crisis your organization might face in the future. We’ll also talk about how you can apply this template to crises inside and outside of your organization.

Western Mining Action Network c/o Western Organization of Resource Councils
220 S. 27th Street, Suite B, Billings, MT 59101
info@wman-info.org