About Full Frame Communications: Jane Feinberg

Jane Feinberg is the founder and president of Full Frame Communications, LLC. She began her professional life as a journalist, harnessing her insatiable curiosity to produce documentaries for national television, and videos for non-profit and government organizations. During her years at WGBH, Feinberg was a developer, writer, and producer of public and commercial television programs and series, including the “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” “The American Experience,” “Frontline,” and PBS specials on Amelia Earhart and the Honorable Thomas P. O’Neil, Jr. For PBS, she also developed children’s programming, college telecourses, and worked on a special about global economics that was nominated for a national Emmy Award. For nearly a decade, Feinberg was also a writer/producer for the award-winning ABC affiliate nightly newsmagazine “Chronicle," where she covered social issues.

Thereafter, Feinberg served a stint as Director of Communications of the Boston Public Schools, where she joined then-Superintendent Thomas Payzant’s cabinet, working with the daily media as press secretary, developing the “Focus on Children” brand, and conducting seminars for principals and administrators on media relations. This experience would forever fortify her commitment to public education and forever shape her career as an advocate for children and their families, particularly for those who face challenges because of inherently discriminatory systems and structures.

Feinberg's last project in television was as director of a two-year, public service campaign for Boston's ABC affiliate. The statewide campaign was a partnership with the United Way in Massachusetts; its goal was to help the public view youth development and after-school programs as essential to the future of the Commonwealth. The campaign won the coveted national “Service to America Award.” The campaign launched Feinberg into new chapter of her career, utilizing her communications skills on behalf of the social sector. During this time, Feinberg consulted to numerous non-profit and governmental organizations as a writer, strategic advisor and video producer.

It was also during this time that she reflected more deeply on the public service campaign at the ABC affiliate. Though it was deemed a great success by traditional measures, the campaign's messaging left Feinberg wondering whether the public truly understood what was at stake for young people and their communities, and how the campaign might have communicated that more effectively. This inquiry led her to the discovery of FrameWorks Institute, a Washington D.C-based communications think tank that conducts research on how Americans understand social issues, and reframes these issues to elevate their public dimensions. In investigating this unique approach to public communications, Feinberg came to understand what was lacking in the campaign messaging. Eventually, she joined the FrameWorks staff as a teacher and curriculum developer--helping to translate social science research into products and tools for senior leaders engaged in policy and program change. Working across the country and on issues as diverse as health reform, climate change, rural policy, early child development, education, and race, Feinberg helped high-profile leaders master the fundamentals of framing, design their collateral, and shape their organizational and sector strategies.

At FrameWorks, Feinberg also helped launch a body of research on Americans' understanding of public education. As the first phase of research was coming to a close, Feinberg decided that she wanted to devote her time exclusively to working on the ground in school districts, helping educational leaders communicate in a way that would build public understanding for student-centered learning strategies. She traveled across New England, partnering closely with school districts that had received substantial grants from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, one of the region's largest educational funders. Her district-based work continued when she became the Strategic Advisor and Regional Partnership Lead for New Profit, a venture philanthropy firm based in Boston. In this capacity, she had the privilege of leading a team to document and codify a trailblazing intervention in one district, and facilitating a high-touch community engaged strategic planning process in another district. This work led to the creation of the Essex County Learning Community, an effort that brings together school districts just north of Boston to help them better meet the diverse assets and learning needs of their students. The project, which is funded by the Peter and Elizabeth C. Tower Foundation, recognizes the changing demographics of inner ring suburbs along a host of dimensions and aspires to bridge the unfortunate divide between general and special education.

Feinberg is a Summa Cum Laude/Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Minnesota, holds an M.S. in journalism from Boston University, and a PhD from the Graduate School of Leadership and Change at Antioch University. Feinberg has served on the boards of directors of several non-profit organizations in the Boston area, as well as in the town of Belmont, Massachusetts, where she lives with her family.