 Speaking Engagements, Social Media, and Contact by External Media

SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS, SOCIAL MEDIA and CONTACT BY EXTERNAL MEDIA

To help advance our mission and share what we are learning with practitioners, policymakers, influencers and others to catalyze broad impact, we seek out and often accept opportunities to represent the foundation through speaking engagements and participation on panels, maintain an active presence for Wallace on social media platforms, and write journal articles and blog posts.

In this policy we share: a) our process for how decisions about speaking engagements, articles and blogs are made; b) how we manage our social media presence and considerations when you participate on social media about topics tied to Wallace; and c) how to handle any contact from external media.

Speaking engagements, articles and blogs: review and decision process

On behalf of the foundation, we develop opportunities for speaking engagements, presentations or participation in panel discussion. Sometimes, invitations for these opportunities are sent directly to an individual staff member. We ask that any requests that come to you directly be reviewed with the director of communications before accepting or declining them. This approach allows us to follow these steps to determine who represents Wallace and what we communicate:

 Apply our criteria1 to ensure we are pursuing the best opportunities for the foundation overall.

 Determine who is best positioned to represent Wallace, taking into consideration the makeup of the audience, topic (initiative-specific or foundation-wide), if media will be present, and whether it is a keynote or panel.

In making decisions, we are guided by three factors: a) who is a good match for the opportunity; b) who is available; and c) our desire to provide opportunities to a broad range of staff to extend our reach and capacity, while also providing individual professional development opportunities for staff.

 Working together, ensure the talk that is developed is aligned with the foundation’s point of view, reflects message maps developed in interdisciplinary teams, incorporates relevant information, and meets our standards for credibility, non-partisanship, clarity and organization.

We use this same approach and considerations with respect to writing op-eds and articles (print or online), and blog posts.

Social Media

Designated staff in the Communications unit are responsible for posting, managing and maintaining Wallace’s social media platforms, e.g., Twitter and Facebook, following established guidelines. As with speaking engagements, any request that comes to you for Wallace to

1 Factors considered for acceptance include: Do we have content to share that is relevant to the audience? Is the audience one we seek to reach? Is the sponsoring organization/publication/venue/social media site reasonably credible and consistent with our brand? Is our presence needed to mitigate possible misrepresentations? 38

contribute on a social media platform should be reviewed in advance with the director of communications.

We encourage you to “like” and “friend” Wallace so that you receive our tweets and posts, and that you consider retweeting and sharing our messages to further extend our reach.

The lines between personal and ‘official’ professional identification can be blurry on social media. On those occasions when you are offering an opinion on your social channels in an area where the foundation works, participating on a site engaged in advocacy or politics, or commenting on the work of a grantee or former staff member, your comments could reasonably be perceived as speaking for Wallace. In these cases, we ask that you please note on the specific post that: “The views are my own” or “The views expressed are my own.” On your own social media channels, if you prefer not to preface individual posts, you can address this possibility with a general note on the channel to the effect that “Views expressed are my own.”

We also ask that you please be mindful of your responsibility to protect confidential and proprietary information of the foundation, grantees and partners. This includes strategy discussions, information contained in proposals, grantee reports, board discussions, financial information and investments, personnel information, and all information described in our Confidentiality of Information policy.

Contacts by external media

The foundation has developed protocols to thoughtfully consider and determine our response to inquiries from external media sources. Please immediately refer any/all requests for information or comment from external media – email, telephone, mail, posting and comments online and on social media platforms -- to the director of communications.

This policy statement is not a contract of employment. The Wallace Foundation reserves the right to change or revoke this policy statement at any time without notice. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Speaking Engagements, Social Media and Contact by External Media June 2019

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