Media Training: Growing Friends, Allies & Advocates in the Newsroom 

This workshop provides tools commonly used by PR professionals to grow mutually beneficial relationships with the media. In following these industry standards, nonprofit professionals will be able to lay a solid communications foundation for their organization, leading to consistent, meaningful media coverage.

Key takeaways from this workshop include: 

• Reaching the media on their terms
• Honing your organizational message
• Crafting a stellar press release
• How to be a stellar interview

Speaker: Chance Henson

A Southeast Texas native, Henson owns local communications agency, Henson Communications, a firm dedicated to helping nonprofit organizations better serve their communities. As a journalist, Henson focused his stories on topics that impact marginalized communities; and as a nonprofit communications professional, his career has led him to serve a variety of organizational causes, including women’s health, public health, and social and economic justice. Utilizing social cognitive theory, Henson designed a creative approach to grassroots movement building in creating social change for the Southeast Texas LGBT community, going on to found Beaumont Pride, SETX Community Coalition, Gay Professionals of Beaumont and an LGBT coming out support group. After traveling the globe, consulting with a variety of businesses from insurance agencies to petrochemical corporations, and even managing a cattle farm Henson has found that there are few communities as unique as that of Southeast Texas, and few endeavors as satisfying as serving that community.

Chance says, "Nonprofit people are the best kind of people - and nonprofits is where the action is. The people who best understand how to create change in SETX can usually be found serving a cause for which they are passionate. Those are the people with whom I want to work, and it’s why I created a PR firm that serves those needs exclusively."