Outreach is critical for the success and sustainability of grant-funded initiatives. It can be the key to creating lasting impact and building valuable connections both inside and outside the ATE community. By using strategic communication and dissemination, projects and centers can reach audiences in meaningful ways and drive advancements in STEM technical education. To support this mission, ATE Central offers practical resources for successful outreach, including how to best announce updates, share deliverables, connect with potential collaborators, and extend the value of your efforts well beyond the life of your grant.

Below is an overview of some of the outreach resources and tools currently provided by ATE Central and EvaluATE that can help your project or center maximize visibility, impact, connection, and long-term sustainability.

ATE Central’s Outreach Kit

To develop a comprehensive plan for engagement and dissemination, ATE Central’s Outreach Kit provides step-by-step guidance on how to define, organize, and implement outreach efforts to meet the specific objectives of your project or center. It also includes sample ideas, best practices for use, and additional resources to foster successful outreach. Directly aligning with the content of the online toolkit, fillable templates help walk you through each step of the planning process - from defining core goals and identifying intended audiences to reflecting on cohesive branding and messaging.

Sections of the ATE Central Outreach Kit include:

• Overview: a summary of content and recommendations for use.
• Outreach Inventory: guidance on how to define overarching objectives, prospective audiences, pathways for connection, potential partnerships, and desired resources for outreach.
• Branding & Messaging: advice on how to integrate branding into messaging and materials to promote cohesiveness and clarity, including considering the use of themes, colors, voice, and evergreen content.
• Outreach Planning: support on how to formulate and prioritize specific outreach objectives and actionable activities, aligning efforts with the unifying goals of your project or center.
• Final Thoughts & Further Reading: a conclusion with further reading and additional resources pertaining to social media, website content, SMART goals, and branding.

ATE Central’s Microsite Service

Websites often form the cornerstone of successful outreach efforts, but creation and maintenance can require significant investments in time and money. ATE Central's Microsite Service helps alleviate traditional barriers by providing current grantees a free way to quickly create mini sites. These platforms can be used to announce upcoming events, highlight progress or updates, feature deliverables, share academic resources, and connect with others in STEM technical education.

Microsites can be customized by grant recipients through photos, illustrations, and graphics, with options to add additional pages, rotating image carousels, and navigational elements. For materials uploaded on the site, this service makes content readily available to the ATE Central team and streamlines the archiving process when the time comes to submit.

To request a microsite for your ATE project or center, or if you have any questions, contact [email protected].

ATE Central’s Social Media Directory

With a diverse array of available social media platforms, it can be difficult to find relevant resources, potential collaborators, or other initiatives with similar objectives or interests. ATE Central has established a directory of ATE projects, centers, and partners with social media accounts across Facebook, LinkedIn, X (Twitter), YouTube, Instagram, Flickr, and blog sites. Use this list to easily find contemporary content, best practices, upcoming events, professional development opportunities, and potential connections within the ATE community.

Resources From EvaluATE

EvaluATE, the evaluation hub for the NSF ATE program, offers several guides, toolkits, and content for promoting effective outreach and dissemination, including

• A short 11-minute video on how to share your innovative work, featured deliverables, and project findings.
• An editable template for building your own dissemination matrix.
• A toolkit on how to create one-page reports to effectively summarize project efforts, outcomes, recommendations, or key findings.

Visit EvaluATE’s resource library for additional outreach-related tools and content.

Leveraging ATE Outreach Resources

By exploring the outreach resources from ATE Central and others in the community, you and your team can effectively reach key stakeholders and partners, build long-term connections, and help strengthen the impacts of your ATE project or center.

If you have outreach resources that you’ve developed or discovered, please share them with us. We would love to feature them on social media, in our monthly newsletter, or on our ATE Impacts blog. Contact us here on ATE Central.