Preliminary Agenda Coming Soon

Workforce and economic development organizations are increasingly expected not only to deliver results but to demonstrate impact to funders, public leaders, employers, partners, and the communities they serve. But even strong outcomes can be overlooked or misunderstood if they aren’t communicated clearly, consistently, and in ways that resonate with different audiences.

This full-day in-person training is designed for workforce and economic development practitioners who want to enhance their ability to measure, interpret, and effectively communicate the impact of their work. Participants will learn how to identify their strongest impact story, choose the evidence that best supports it (rather than leading with data), and build messages that align with what different audiences care about and need to hear.

A central focus of the day is understanding your audience, recognizing that employers, elected officials, funders, boards, and community partners each have distinct priorities and varying definitions of success. Participants will use practical tools to develop simple persona narratives, making it easier to tailor information without having to start from scratch every time.

The training also includes a hands-on workshop to identify common challenges, such as stakeholder skepticism, competing priorities, unclear ownership of messaging, and partner misalignment, and to apply strategies to address them. The day concludes with a practical planning component that helps participants move from “unplanned communications” to an intentional outreach approach: what to share, with whom, when, and through what channels.

By the end of the training, participants will have tools, templates, and draft materials that enable them to communicate impact with clarity, credibility, and purpose.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this training, you will be able to:

1. Identify the key audiences you need to influence (funders, employers, public leaders, boards, partners, community members) and understand what each group needs to hear to support or act.
2. Build simple persona narratives to anticipate what different audiences care about, what they might question, and what builds trust.
3. Clarify your strongest impact story, what changed, who benefited, and why it matters.
4. Select the right evidence to support your story, using outcomes and data to strengthen credibility without overwhelming your message.
5. Create an intentional communications plan that outlines what to share, who to involve, and how to keep your impact message consistent across partners and platforms.

Meet the Instructor:

Denise Kennedy, President & CEO, Anthology Communications

With 25 years of strategic communications experience, Denise understands what it takes to connect with your audience and stakeholders. She helps organizations focus on their goals through integrated communications, collecting wins along the way. Her specific skills include strategic planning, media relations, messaging, stakeholder engagement, communications strategy, thought leadership, editing, facilitation, and serving as an interpreter between clients, creatives, communications experts and business leaders. In her 25 years, Denise has worked with organizations across various issues, including Veterans health, accessibility, healthcare, mental health, workforce development, economic development, education, software development, and B2B technology. Denise graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, is a certified facilitator and completed SBA’s Emerging Leaders Academy in 2020.