Services

Earned Media and Media Relations

Every initiative, decision, action, and priority that a client makes is an opportunity to tell a story, and ultimate receive positive external exposure.  Building strong media relations,  driving earned media results, and maximizing social platforms comes not only from connections and trust with the media, but also the support from the right counsel to proactively define those opportunities and craft a vision on how to best maximize them.  MDF Strategies has built catalogs of results for clients by leveraging years of personal relationships with local and national media.  The firm uncovers opportunities for clients that have often been gone long ignored or missed.  And in this new world, where news outlets are shrinking at an alarming pace, MDF Strategies can assist in find creative ways to drive results - whether developing your strongest possible narrative, expanding your social ecosystem and digital infrastructure, building needed strategic partnerships or creating valued content.

Project Management and External Team Support

MDF Strategies provides superior project management for long-term initiatives that goes far beyond communication and engagement.  Often when a client hires a firm, a selling point is that they are buying access to the firm's whole team.  A closer look at this model can reveal that some of these players a company inherits from a firm are untested, do not provide direct value - and worse, can be disruptive to a client.  MDF Strategies takes a far different approach - prioritizing efficiency, reasponsibility. and building needed metrics.  We leverage our unique network of relationships from across the country to create for our clients a customized "dream team" of the very best experts, ensuring specific skill sets are provided, voids are addressed, and that the people working on a project are uniquely chosen to serve the client's specific needs.

Community Engagement, Strategic Partnerships, and Dissemination

People want to feel a part of something.  It is human nature.  Targeting and consistently engaging with your core stakeholders and constituency groups, communicating internally to staff or Boards, managing external funders and supporters, building needed strategic partners, and ensuring your organization has the power to disseminate information thoroughly has become of vital importance within the marketplace. MDF Strategies works closely with its clients to determine core audiences and create needed platforms, content, lists, and infrastructure to ensure engagement is clear, simplified, and consistent.

Crisis and Reputation Management

In a time of crisis, you need far more from a consultant than what they "think," you need someone who "knows."  And knowing only comes from experience.  Before launching MDF Strategies, CEO and Founder Matthew Frankel served some of the most high profile elected leaders and CEOs in the country.  Right out of college, Matthew Frankel served as Press Aide to House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt, then grew into becoming a veteran press secretary on Capitol Hill and a variety of political campaigns.  He went on to lead communications divisions as a C-suite executive, promoting and defending the reputations of some of the most well-known corporate media CEOs in the country.  This tested experience, brings unmatched understanding in addressing crisis, particularly the variety of risks that any brand or institution must address in a highly combative rapid response culture.   More than just insight, guidance, and support, the firm knows how to compete, inoculate, build needed consensus, and swiftly leverage communications to best minimize impact and act decisively.

Brand Building

From rolling out key policy initiatives on Capitol Hill to premiering television content such as Mad Men and Breaking Bad, or formally launching new corporate brands, foundations, and think tanks, MDF Strategies is an expert brand-building institution. MDF Strategies begins its brand-building process with a simple premise – no one knows your brand better than you.  Whether a client realizes it or not - MDF Strategies believes that you do not need a consultant to tell you what your brand represents, you need a consultant who listens, can help you define your goals, and then advises.  MDF Strategies will work within your team to provide and develop brand clarity, ensure all stakeholders feel part of the process, and then build and integrate definition and consistency on all internal and external levels.  In addition, creating strong social engagement is the most efficient and cost-effective way to help build your brand. It is empowering because it allows institutions to bypass a variety of "middlemen" so you can directly engage core audiences.  For many institutions, this important part of brand building is easy and part of their DNA.  MDF Strategies' sweet spot is advising clients on social engagement, building needed communication platforms, and creating desired ecosystems with those who remain uneasy in adapting to, and fully maximizing, these platforms.  

One-on-One Executive Coaching

Whether the focus is  personal development, executive-related issues, or career planning, MDF Strategies provides a series of corporate and non-profit executives with consistent one-on-one confidential thought-partnership and counsel.  With decades of experience and many "lessons learned" to draw on, MDF Strategies' CEO and Founder Matthew Frankel is a passionate advocate of one-on-one coaching. He helped launch the United Way of Northern Essex County's Family Success Center, where he also served as a volunteer career and professional coach, personally advising over 400 New Jersey professionals.  Throughout the academic year, he also facilitates Bloomfield College's Emerging and Advanced Leadership Series, which brings leaders and executives in areas such as politics, finance, media, non-profits, and other industries to campus, providing students with much-needed direct counsel on the workplace and career development strategies.