Nine conversations
All six problems have a common root, communication + collaboration. They need the words, defined workflows, clearer roles, and steps that can start now.
Obstacle 01
Complexity
It grew fast, around a major gift, and the programs arrived at different times with their own names and histories. There was never a moment to settle one shared story. Today even the people inside describe GBHI differently, and someone outside has little chance of grasping what it is or how the parts connect. The work is excellent. The picture of it is missing.
Obstacle 03
Sharing and collaboration
The programs share a purpose and mostly work in parallel. What's missing is a regular way to see across them, so a finding in one place can reach the others and be told to the outside world. Good work stays inside the program that made it.
Obstacle 05
Targeted Giving
Donors tend to give to the one program that touched their family, which is a real strength. But many are wary of giving to the institute, because it's not clear where a gift to the whole lands. Without one story, the bigger need goes unfunded.
Obstacle 02
Accessibility
Patients, families, doctors, and caregivers have no single clear place to turn to. Answers, resources, research, and the work being done are spread across programs and hard to find. The people who most need what GBHI knows often can't reach it.
Obstacle 04
Invisibility
From outside Emory, few people know GBHI exists, what it does, or how to get involved. There's no clear way in, no place to follow, no steady presence. The work happens, and the world rarely hears about it
Obstacle 06
Hesitance
An earlier effort to bring the programs together didn't last, so talk of unifying can sound like programs losing their name, their donors, or their independence. The cost today is caution: good ideas for working together go unsaid, even by people who want the whole to succeed.
GBHI · The recommendation
Recommendation:
Make GBHI the knowledge translation & Community Hub.
A useful resource to a wider audience and the place cognitive health gets explained as accessible expertise.
One clear role, one shared story, and a real investment in reaching people, without any program losing what makes it its own.
Its functions:
Research Translation.
Program Amplifier.
Community Custodian.
Educational Anchor.
Brand Voice/Brand Custodian.
Give GBHI a clear reason for being and core idea:
telling the consolidated story of work the programs do, growing community engagement, and translating the science into content.
Turning dense healthcare data into engaging content.
Think of it as a small in-house communications agency for the whole institute. Every program keeps doing its own work and its own outreach. GBHI's job is to take what all of them are doing/learning and turn it into a resource ordinary people can read, watch, apply, use and share.
That job has two aims. Grow a real community online, a following of families, patients, caregivers, and supporters who hear from GBHI regularly. And turn the science into a resource people can use, plain explanations of research, what it means, and what to do with it.
It's also about explaining finally how the programs actually connect. The habit of sharing, gathering stories and findings in one place, is what links the work across programs and lets it be told as one story instead of five unconnected ones.
None of this flattens the programs. They keep their names, their leaders, their donors, and their own channels. GBHI doesn't sit above them. It supports them, as the shared voice that carries their work to the world and makes the whole easier to understand.
One Vision, Shared Purpose
A single idea of where all of this is working towards and WHY, shared by every program.
Many missions
A single idea of where all of this is working towards and WHY, shared by every program. Shared "branding" of the content made through collaboration.
A story that transforms complexity and helplessness into answers
GBHI carries the shared story and the science, so the parts add up to more than five.
Solution 01/06 : Communication Platform
01. Align on GBHI's role as the creative communication platform; the educational and community voice. GBHI's reason for being is to translate the science into something useful and to gather a community around it.
This is the decision everything else grows from. Right now GBHI does communications work without a clear reason for it. Naming a real purpose, translating the science and building a community, gives the institute something to exist for beyond holding the programs, and gives people a shared answer to what GBHI is. It costs no new work. It's a choice about what the work is for.
The plan
Unify storytelling and core communication idea as a cohesive external facing brand.
Audit of all current social channels and touchpoints.
Get program leads on board, so the shift is shared rather than imposed
What it fixes
Complexity.
A single idea of where all of this is working towards and WHY, shared by every program.
Hesitance.
A role that amplifies the programs, rather than absorbing them, makes it a win-win for everyone.
Sharing.
Names the job of carrying work across the programs, so it becomes someone's responsibility
Outcomes
A sense of purpose and brand story.
The institute gains a reason for being that its people can rally around
Clarity internally and externally.
People can finally answer what GBHI is and does
A direction forward.
Names and variables might change along the way, but communication will still be needed regardless of future changes.
Solution 02/06 : Social Media
02. Turn the channels from just announcements into real learning + conversation, with a clear story, for wider audiences. Align name, branding and story. Show up regularly with useful, actionable content for a wider audience.
Run the channels GBHI already has, adding Instagram, and align name, branding and story. Show up regularly with useful, actionable content for a wider audience.
A community forms where people can find you and hear from you. Today the channels mostly carry announcements. The shift is to fill them with things people actually find useful, in one consistent voice, so following GBHI is worth someone's time. This is where the work meets the public, and where reach begins.
The plan
Audit the existing channels, and open the Instagram account
Set one consistent voice, look, and handle across all of them
Decide for what and for whom each channel is for, families here, peers and donors.
Start a simple posting rhythm the team can actually keep
Pull baseline numbers now, so growth can be measured later
What it fixes
Invisibility.
Gives the world a place to find GBHI and follow it
Accessibility.
Puts useful things where people already spend time
Complexity.
One voice across channels makes the whole feel like one thing
Outcomes
More awareness of the institue's work and that it exists.
GBHI becomes something people outside Emory can see and follow
Gain a following of more audiences; peers, patients, care takers, donors
More of the right people learn the institute exists
A front door.
A steady presence that new supporters can find and join
Solution 03/06 : A Front Door
03. Build one hub where it all collects and people can find it. A single online home (or Platform) where studies, resources, answers, and how to get involved all collect; sorted to be useful for a normal user/person.
Social posts do the reaching, but they scroll away. A hub is where everything lives so people can find it later: a family looking for answers at midnight, a doctor after a diagnosis, a donor deciding where to give. Without one home, you have nowhere to drive traffic from and to.
The plan
Map what a visitor actually needs, arranged by their questions, not the org chart
Gather existing resources and research into one place
Design a simple, clear layout anyone can navigate
Add one clear way to sign up, so visitors become subscribers
Point every social channel back to the hub
What it fixes
Invisibility.
Gives the channels and touch points somewhere to send people to land on.
Accessibility.
One clear place to find everything, in plain language
Complexity.
A single home makes the whole legible at a glance
Outcomes
More people helped.
The knowledge reaches anyone who goes looking
An owned audience.
Sign-ups build a list GBHI keeps, not a rented following
Credibility.
One clear home reads as a trustworthy source
Solution 04/06 : Noramlize it
04. Quarterly summits to excavate and gather the stories worth telling. Every program at one table, four times a year, with someone to distill out what's worth sharing with the world.
The content has to come from somewhere, and it's already here, in findings, patient stories, and things families should know that never leave the building. A regular meeting turns that from luck into habit. It's also the single most direct fix for the programs working apart, because it's the one time they're all in the same room by design.
The plan
Put a standing quarterly meeting on the calendar
Give it a simple agenda, what's new, what's worth telling, what's coming
Assign someone to capture stories and turn them into content ideas
Leave with a short list of what to make before the next one
Keep a shared place where findings and stories are logged year-round
What it fixes
Sharing and collaboration.
The one regular time the programs connect by design
Invisibility.
Surfaces the work that's been going untold
Collaboration.
Seeing across the programs is how the shared story gets found
Outcomes
Cross-pollination.
A finding in one program can spark work in another
Elevated perception of institute.
The institute sees itself whole, and shows the world outside what it is building as a shared resource.
Communicate value externally to everyone.
That the institute is a place where things are happening, where expertise and compassion lives.
Solution 04/06 : Noramlize it
05. Build a content plan to set up the team for success. A content strategy and the plan to run it: a calendar, reusable templates, a system to repurpose existing content, and a more defined workflow.
Good intentions fade without a system. The difference between a burst of posts that stops in month three and a presence that lasts is a plan: what to make, when, and how, so it doesn't depend on anyone finding spare time. This is also where existing material, recorded talks and webinars, gets turned into many smaller pieces instead of sitting unused.
The plan
Build a definitive roadmap.
Define the content strategy: the themes, the formats, who it's for
Build a content calendar, planned weeks ahead
Make reusable templates for posts and video, so anyone can produce them
Set up a simple studio corner for quick video and interviews
Repurpose the back catalogue of talks and webinars into short pieces
Agree a simple workflow, one approver, a clear turnaround
What it fixes
Access.
A steady stream of plain, useful content, not the odd post
Invisibility.
Consistency is what actually grows an audience
Collaboration.
A system makes the summit's material easy to turn around
Outcomes
Impact, but seen from the outside.
A presence that keeps going instead of fading after a burst
Saved time, amplified efforts
One recorded talk becomes many useful pieces
Elevated work, more capacity
Systemizing broader reach and standardized communications
Solution 04/06 : Noramlize it
06. Grow a community, because connection is part of the care. Turn the audience into a real community, invite people in, give them a reason to stay and bring others, and watch real numbers and visibility of the work grow.
Give people a place to start on a long journey with you to better cognitive health.Turn the audience into a real community, invite people in, give them a reason to stay and bring others.
This is the point of all of it, and the part that needs a plain word of justification. Growing a community online isn't marketing for its own sake. For these diseases, connection itself seems to help, so building a place where people find each other is part of the care. And a following is how you know the story is landing, and when it's time to invest more.
The plan
Ask people to follow and subscribe, at every event and in every post
Reply, feature people, and answer questions, so it feels like a community
Use the faculty and program networks to reach the first audiences
Track the numbers that matter, followers, engagement, sign-ups, returning faces
Once the presence is steady, consider paid reach to grow faster
What it fixes
Access.
Real information and actionable change can reach more patients, care providers and families. More preventative measures reach broader audiences, more resources (information) reach more who truly need it. Gives people a place to start on a journey with you.
Invisibility.
A growing, engaged following is visibility you can measure. Visibility of the science, studies and research gets seen.
Collaboration.
A system makes the summit's material easy to turn around
Outcomes
Impact, but seen from the outside.
A presence that keeps going instead of fading after a burst
Saved time, amplified efforts
One recorded talk becomes many useful pieces
Elevated work, more capacity
Systemizing broader reach and standardized communications
The brand compass
GBHI is the ground the programs stand on, not a layer above them. Five programs, five ways of doing one thing: understand, discover, predict, reach, empower.
One vision above, shared values around, the programs in their places, and GBHI beneath as the platform that connects them.
