June 23, 2010; Source: PR Newswire | It’s never been particularly easy for nonprofits to get their messages out—or in popular parlance—”to tell their stories” so that they gain the ear of donors or others who might be more inclined to support or get involved if they knew more about what these groups do. Sometimes it’s a lack of internal communications or marketing capacity, but more often than not it’s hard to justify the expenditures when so many other costs need to be covered.

To remedy that, The Saint Luke’s Foundation of Cleveland has just announced the 10 winners of its “Make it Stick” grant program, which will share $513,000 in grants. “Nonprofits need help telling their stories,” said Denise San Antonio Zeman, President and CEO of the Saint Luke’s Foundation.

“Reaching the right audiences with messages that ‘stick’ in peoples’ minds is critical to the effectiveness of any program or service. We believe in building communications capacity so strongly that we dedicated the entire second quarter grant cycle to funding communications projects that will have measurable communications impact.” The winning nonprofits provide services that range from literacy training for adults to violence prevention to providing affordable housing to assisting rape victims.— Bruce Trachtenberg