2011 Report to the Nation Playbook

2011 Report to the Nation Playbook

A Field Guide to Making the National Report Local

OVERVIEW

Each year, as part of the BSA’s congressional charter, the Boy Scouts of America® is required to present a report to the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. This report covers who the BSA is as an organization; the programs and initiatives it supports; and its major accomplishments and contributions over the past year.

This report is a presentation of who we are and what we do as a community—from the organization as a whole down to each individual unit. Thus, we each own a little piece of it.

To bring that important point home, each year, we select a delegation of six to 10 Scouts is selected to travel to Washington, D.C., to deliver the report to our nation’s leaders. This represents all areas of Scouting, and delegates come from every region of the country.

The delegation typically includes:

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·  A Cub Scout and his parent(s)

·  Three or four Boy Scouts

·  The Venturing president

·  The Sea Scout boatswain

·  The Order of the Arrow chief

·  A host couple, who serves as the Scoutmaster on the trip

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This year, the delegation will be in Washington, D.C., from Feb. 11-16 and the 2011 Report to the Nation will be delivered to the Speaker of the House on Wednesday, Feb. 15. While the agenda varies from year to year, past delegations have visited the Pentagon, White House, CIA, Smithsonian museums, congressional offices, and the U.S. Supreme Court, among others.

THE OPPORTUNITY

The Report to the Nation presents a significant opportunity for local councils, districts, and even units to tell your story to your communities, media, elected officials, current and potential donors, council board members, schools, and other Scouting advocates. Our accomplishments are a mark of pride for us as an organization and should be communicated to our local peers.

Beyond the content of the report, there is also a significant opportunity for local councils that have Scouts in the delegation to highlight the Scout, his or her accomplishments, and the upcoming trip.

This playbook will serve as your field guide to making the Report to the Nation local—to promote the good works of the BSA nationally while highlighting the many contributions Scouting makes in your communities to the media, local organizations, board members, and other advocates and friends.

STEP ONE: MAKE THE REPORT YOURS

Customize the Report to the Nation to make it a Report to your state, council territory, or individual community. To make it as relevant as possible, this year’s Report to the Nation will have spaces to add information that is specific to your council, districts, or units. For example, relevant information to include would be the total number of Scouts within the council or market, total number of service hours donated, key numbers related to summer camps, and other important statistics. You can even give examples of significant projects undertaken by Scouts in your communities.

To make this step as easy and seamless as possible, we have included prompts within the national report (which will be highlighted for quick and easy reference) for local councils and units to complete. This section should be completed before the report is shared externally.

STEP TWO: SHARE THE REPORT WITH THE MEDIA

PREPARE A LOCAL PRESS KIT TO SHARE THE REPORT WITH MEDIA. At the end of this playbook, you will find various documents that can be personalized to put press kits together for the media. These documents will serve to provide the media with relevant information that will aid in forming a solid story. Press kits can be shared with the reporter in electronic format or hard copy. If materials are shared via hard copy, it is recommended that all press kit materials be housed together in a BSA-branded folder.

Materials to include, many of which can be found in the Resources section of this playbook are:

·  Localized version of Report to the Nation. Remember to personalize this report before sharing externally. Making sure the report is local will be important to reporters. Please note that the template version of the Report to the Nation will be sent separately from this document.

·  Local news release. Be sure to personalize the news release with local data and quotes and add contact information so that reporters can follow up with questions and interview requests.

·  Report to the Nation fact sheet. This piece, shorter in form than the full report, provides a snapshot of the Report to the Nation. This can and should be localized before including in the press kit.

·  Eagle Scouts fact sheet. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Eagle Scout rank. Use this fact sheet now and throughout the year any time you’re highlighting Eagle Scouts.

·  Additional fact sheets. These additional sheets include information on STEM and SCOUTStrong™.

·  Graphic assets. This includes an animated video and information graph which illustrates this year’s report.

MAKE A MEDIA CONTACT LIST. You may already have an existing media list from which you work on a regular basis. If not, with a little research, you can create one to aid you in pursuing media outreach across your market. Your media list should include all major daily and community newspapers in the area, along with local broadcast news affiliates (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, etc.). Include those reporters and editors with whom you have an existing relationship and also round out the list to include:

·  Community/metro reporters

·  Youth reporters

·  News assignment editors

REACH OUT TO REPORTERS WITH A COMPELLING PITCH. When sending your press kit to the media, you should use the opportunity to grab the reporter’s or editor’s attention with a brief but compelling pitch. Why does this matter to the reporter? Why should they care? What does this have to do with the local community? This is your opportunity to make the case for your—and your Scout’s—story and why it should be considered.

We’ve included sample language in the Resources section of this playbook for your reference. You should feel free to personalize the pitch to your tone and voice as much as possible. This language is simply a starting point. But remember, be brief and keep it relevant.

PREPARE POTENTIAL INTERVIEWEES. It will be important to identify Scouts, unit leaders, and council staff and key volunteers that can be available for interviews should the reporter request it (they usually do). Having a list at the ready also adds meat to your pitch, promising a better, more localized, and more humanized story.

In advance of any interviews, make sure that the spokespersons are familiar with the contents of the Report to the Nation and can speak to the contents from a personal standpoint. To help you, there are core messages included for your review in the Resources section. But, adding personal tone and flavor to these messages will be important. Perhaps you offer the reporter an interview with an Eagle Scout who has recently completed his service project, a Boy Scout who in the past year visited a high-adventure base, or a Scoutmaster who can discuss what a troop has done through SCOUTStrong™ or with the new Robotics merit badge.

MAKE A PERSONAL CONNECTION WITH THE REPORTER. After your pitch and press kit have been sent to reporters, it makes sense to follow up via phone to make a personal connection and gauge any interest they may have in the story. At this time, you can reinforce the assets you’re making available, whether it’s an invitation to attend a local presentation of the report to community leaders or an interview with a Scout.

Suggested Media Outreach Timeline

Task / Suggested Date /
Develop:
·  Press kit
o  Localized Report to the Nation
o  News release
o  Fact sheets
·  Media contact list
·  Personalized pitch email or letter / By Monday, Feb.13
Distribute localized Report to the Nation and press kit. / Wednesday, Feb.15
Make pitch calls to media and offer interviews. / Wednesday, Feb.15
Share any media coverage with online followers.
·  Council, district, and/or unit Facebook
·  Council, district, and/or unit Twitter / Ongoing after Feb.15

STEP THREE: SHARE IT WITH THE COMMUNITY

Once the report has been released to the media, it also makes sense to share copies with your stakeholders within your community. You could collaborate with other councils to send a group of Scouts to present the report at the state capitol, or encourage units to present at city council meetings.

In the Resources section that follows, we have also included sample cover letters to include when sending to key internal (council board members) and external groups (municipal leaders, elected officials, school board members, prominent and potential donors, etc.). You can use these letters as a starting point to share your personal story directly with audiences that matter most to you as a council.

It also makes sense to get Scouts involved in sharing the report with the community. You can:

·  Have Scouts prepare a formal presentation of the Report to the Nation that utilizes video or presentation programs like PowerPoint and deliver an oral presentation to:

o  Local elected officials, including:

§  The mayor and city council

§  Congressional district offices

§  State representatives and senators

o  Board of the local council

o  Local school board officials

o  Parent teacher associations

o  Their class at school

o  Their parents

·  Identify Scouts who can serve as spokespeople/interviewees for media.

·  Have Scouts reach out to the staff of their school newspaper to get one of their peers to write about the Report to the Nation, or if the Scouts are student writers, encourage them to cover it.

STEP FOUR: TALK ABOUT THE REPORT WITH SCOUTS

(AND GET SCOUTS TO TALK ABOUT IT IN RETURN)

The Report to the Nation presents an ideal opportunity to get Scouts interested in the various activities surrounding the report as well. Certain activities will be more appropriate for older Scouts than younger Scouts. We’ve included some thought starters below:

DISCUSSION TOPICS DURING UNIT MEETINGS

·  Why is the Report to the Nation important to the BSA/our unit?

·  Share the national delegation’s agenda, and discuss why it is important to let our nation’s leaders know what we do each year.

·  Focus on the various tenets within the report (Prepared. For Service. Prepared. For Leadership. Prepared. For Learning. Prepared. For Adventure.) and discuss how the unit has lived out these pillars over the past year.

·  Set both individual and unit goals to address each pillar within the report (service, leadership, learning, and adventure) for 2012.

ENGAGING OTHERS VIA SOCIAL MEDIA

·  Share links to the Report to the Nation news coverage with followers on the council, district and/or unit’s social media channels.

·  For Scouts that are above age 13 and have active social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter, encourage them to share the statistics within the Report with their followers.

·  Engage individuals/Scouts in discussion about the Report through the unit, district or council social media channels. Invite fans/followers to weigh in and identify Scouts (age 13 and over) to weigh in.

·  Post a blog about Report to the Nation on council websites. A template article (which can also be used in newsletters and enewsletters) is included in the Resources section.

RESOURCES

On the following pages, you will find key documents and templates that will aid you in localizing the Report to the Nation and sharing it with key internal and external audiences. These documents include:

·  Core messages for Scouts and leaders

·  Customizable Report to the Nation

·  Report to the Nation news release template

·  Sample media pitch language

·  Report to the Nation fact sheet

·  Eagle Scout fact sheet

·  Sample cover letters for use when sharing the report with internal and external audiences

·  Sample blog/newsletter content

·  Information Graph and Video

CORE MESSAGES

Scouts

·  I am so proud to represent Scouting and my community to deliver the Boy Scouts of America’s Report to the Nation. This is a tradition that goes back to President Taft. It is even more exciting this year, because we get to deliver the first report from our second century of Scouting.

·  The report we are delivering has information about the impact of Scouting on our country. I am one of nearly 3 million Scouts across the nation. As Scouts, we do community service, help take care of the environment, learn how to be a leader, and also how to be a good team member.

·  Scouting teaches us how to do the right thing, to help others, and to be courteous and kind.

·  Scouting has given me the opportunity to do a lot of fun and challenging things that I might not have tried otherwise. I know now I can achieve things that I might have thought were too hard or scary before.

·  I think it’s good for kids today to be involved in Scouting because it’s really fun. We get to go on all kinds of adventures, and earning merit badges is a fun way to learn about lots of different things.