Welcome to the Engagement Guide for Producers

What do you hope will happen when people interact with the content you create? Will they call or tweet friends during the broadcast? Go online to contribute their own stories? Buy a DVD of the program for siblings or parents? Post comments on their Facebook pages, or yours? Will they attend a community summit, write a letter to the editor, volunteer, make a donation, comment on a blog, register to vote? In short, will they think, feel or act in new ways?

When you present a program through public media, you enjoy the prestige and trust associated with PBS, NPR and other national distributors. Your web content and social media will be linked from some of the most respected and highly trafficked sites in the U.S. But perhaps more importantly, you can reach out and touch viewers and listeners across the nation through hundreds of local public television and radio stations. Local engagement specialists, along with their nonprofit partners, will promote and support your program before, during and after the broadcast. They will connect your program to local movements and thought leaders, generate buzz in regional media, ignite conversations at screenings and in classrooms, and develop hyperlocal content to make your program resonate even more powerfully in their communities.

This guide will help you make the most of the public media experience. It describes how to define your engagement audiences and outcomes, create and implement an engagement plan, establish local/national partnerships, and carefully document your results. These steps will not only deepen the impact of your program, but will also signal to current and future funders that you are able to create a multimedia, participatory project that creates value within individuals and communities.

Begin your exploration of the Engagement Guide for Producers at the beginning, with information about public media and the basic definitions of community engagement.