Promoting Your Grant

We find that many grantees wish to share this news with their network to amplify their work. The Trust also engages in various publicity activities throughout the year to help promote the work of our grantees. This page is designed to outline our guidelines for grant publicity while also sharing how the Trust amplifies our grants and where Trust staff or partners may contact you to participate.

It is important to the Trust staff that we be clear from the very start: promoting (or not promoting) your grant is entirely up to you. Please note that the Murdock Trust publishes our grantees on a quarterly and annual basis via reports distributed to our constituents.

Publicity is a tool you can use to increase awareness of your organization and the work that has been funded through the Trust. While we are eager and excited to help spread the valuable work your organization is doing to serve our community, we understand that there may be circumstances where promoting a grant at a given time does not fit with broader strategic priorities. We leave to your discretion the publicity of a grant and your project’s results.

Please do not take anything in this document to suggest in anyway that publicizing your grant or participating in a Murdock Trust promotion is required or expected, nor will it have any bearing on current or future grant or partnership opportunities.

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Grantee Publicity

If you do wish to promote your grant, here are some tactics that have been effective for past recipients:

• A press release sent to local media – Download our sample press release
• An announcement posted on your website, blog, or newsletter
• An announcement sent to your email/contact lists
• A video posted online describing the project in question
• A post on your social media accounts. 
  • We would greatly appreciate if you would tag us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram so that we can engage with your posts and help drive our audience to your page.
  • We would also greatly appreciate if you and your team would follow the Trust on our four social media channels to help us expand our network and reach more individuals and organizations serving the common good.

The Trust requests that press releases, publications, public addresses, and social media announcements resulting from a grant include acknowledgment of support by the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust. We are happy to assist you in reviewing these materials and providing content about the Trust.  If you would like to use our logo, please contact us in advance for a logo file and to confirm proper use.

We are continually sharing the good work of organizations with which we partner and invite you to submit a photo that is representative of your organization, your work, and the constituencies you serve. We may use this photo on our website, on social media, in publications, or to display in the Trust offices.

Download our photo submission tips and guidelines

We would also appreciate copies of any of these announcements as we may share the exciting news on our website and social media.  Please email announcements or requests for use of our logo to Colby Reade, our vice president of strategy and communications, at colbyr@murdocktrust.org or 360-694-8415.

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Trust Publicity

A core priority for the Murdock Trust is to promote and amplify the work of our grantees as they seek to serve the common good of our community.

We do this in a number of ways, including:

• Sharing grantee stories on our four social media networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram). This may be done organically or with paid support funded by the Trust.
• Publishing Quarterly Reports of our new grantees as well as an Annual Report summarizing our work. These reports highlight a collection of grantee stories from across the states and sectors we serve, as well as a comprehensive list of all grants made.
• Conducting press outreach, sharing grantee stories through reports or press releases to help drive media coverage in local markets.
• Filming a variety of video projects amplifying stories of current and recent grantees and their impact on our community.
• Publishing blogs and articles about our grantees on our website.
• Placing sponsored articles and paid advertisements in local media outlets that highlight specific grantees in the area.

While we are unable to highlight every grantee, we try to promote as many as we can. During the year, you may be contacted by our Communications Team to participate in one or more of these opportunities. Again, participation in these or any publicity opportunities is strictly voluntary, is not expected and will have no bearing on current or future partnerships.

Finally, we prefer that you not spend your valuable resources on plaques or other items that you may wish to send us in acknowledgement of the receipt of this grant. Having the privilege of supporting the great work you do is reward enough.

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Questions?

Contact our vice president of strategy and communications, Colby Reade, at colbyr@murdocktrust.org or 360-694-8415.

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About M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust

Brief statement about the Trust

M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, created by the will of the late Melvin J. (Jack) Murdock, provides grants to nonprofit organizations in five states of the Pacific Northwest—Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington—that seek to strengthen the region’s educational, social, spiritual, and cultural base in creative and sustainable ways. murdocktrust.org

Extended statement about the Trust

M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust was created by the will of the late Melvin J. (Jack) Murdock, who was a co-founder of Tektronix, Inc. in Beaverton, Oregon, and a resident of Vancouver, Washington. Since its establishment on June 30, 1975, with a bequest of about $91 million, the Trust has focused its grantmaking efforts primarily in five states of the Pacific Northwest: Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Over the life of the Trust over $1.4 billion has been distributed through about 8,800 grants.

The Trust’s mission is to enrich the quality of life in the Pacific Northwest by providing grants to organizations that seek to strengthen the region’s educational, social, cultural, and spiritual base in creative and sustainable ways. Grants are awarded to a wide variety of organizations, including those that serve the arts, public affairs, education, scientific research, health and medicine, human services, and people with disabilities.

The Trust’s staff brings a wide range of experiences in the subject areas and activities necessary for thoughtful grantmaking and the investment of Trust assets. In addition to grantmaking activities, it is common Trust practice to convene groups of people to discuss issues of mutual interest. This practice is of great assistance to the Trust in exploring ways of responding to new grantmaking opportunities consistent with its mission, promoting a sharing of ideas and networking among participants, and understanding new developments and best practices in the various sectors in which the Trust works.

Melvin J. (Jack) Murdock

Jack Murdock was born in Portland, Oregon, on August 15, 1917. Upon graduating from Franklin High School, and with help from his parents, Jack chose to go into business rather than pursue a college education. He purchased a shop for the sale and service of radios and electrical appliances. There, in 1936, he began a long-term working relationship with his technician, Howard Vollum. Both served in WWII, where they gained additional education and experience in technology and electronics. Following the war, the men renewed their business partnership and, in 1946, became the principal co-founders of Tektronix.

Jack first served as vice president and general manager of Tektronix. In 1960 he was elected chairman of the board, a position he held until his untimely death on May 16, 1971, as a result of a float plane accident on the Columbia River. Tektronix has become one of the world’s prominent electronic instrumentation companies and has spun off dozens of related companies. While the Trust is proud of its Tektronix heritage, it is an independent private foundation having no connection with the company.

Jack was an idealist as well as a realist and a life-long seeker of new insights. He believed in science as a main source of knowledge and knowledge as key to resolving issues and addressing the needs of the world. He was thoroughly unpretentious, soft spoken, and a listener. He possessed a rare combination of good judgment, hard work, tolerance, and scrupulous honesty. He practiced philanthropy through his own private foundation that existed until the Murdock Trust was formed. More on Jack’s story is available in both video and written format at murdocktrust.org