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Mission

Statement from the Managing Partners:

What’s different about Renna Communications is that – for us and our team – it’s not “just business.” It’s personal.

Throughout our lives, we both have valued social justice and served in different ways as agents of social change. However, in 2005, we also became parents. As any parent will attest, having a child increases the stakes immeasurably. As parents and activists, we recognize that it is our responsibility to contribute to the creation of the world in which we want our child – and all future generations – to live.

As a result, we founded Renna Communications in March of 2006. Within the LGBT and wider progressive community, we saw what we perceived to be a need for greater access to sophisticated and nuanced communications strategies. We started our firm to meet that need. We understand the power of the media in creating cultural change and want to help others leverage that power in the public interest.

Our mission is to bring our expertise in media relations and communications to organizations and people who are working to change the world for the better.

Our firm’s media relations expertise builds upon Cathy Renna’s nearly two decades of experience in media relations and community organizing. During her 14 years with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Cathy served as a major force behind the organization’s growth and success. She contributed to the strategic, crisis communications and community relations components of GLAAD’s most visible campaigns. Most notably, in terms of crisis response, Cathy played a central role in garnering and shaping media coverage of the beating death of Matthew Shepard in 1998. Serving frequently as a public spokesperson for GLAAD, Cathy became nationally recognized as a media relations expert and a leader within the LGBT community. In her years performing media outreach, Cathy has garnered placements in every major newspaper and television in the United States, including the Oprah Winfrey Show, the Today Show, Good Morning America, 20/20, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times and a cover story of Time Magazine. Cathy’s ability to recognize what stories will “have legs” is unparalleled, and she is directly involved in the development and implementation of all of the firm’s media relations strategies.

Our firm’s communications expertise builds upon Leah McElrath’s nearly two decades of experience as a professional clinical social worker, psychotherapist and group facilitator. In addition to being an expert on language and interpersonal communications, Leah has particular skills in the strategic analysis of the intersection of diverse issues, such as public and mental health, child welfare, LGBT and women’s issues, family dynamics and religion. She is a talented writer and has written and contributed to pieces featured under her own name and for attribution to others published in the New York Times Magazine, USA Today, the New York Daily News, AM New York, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Advocate.com and Time.com. Leah has also worked in the financial field as a licensed stockbroker and financial advisor and takes the lead on the financial operations of the firm.

Together, we can create a better world –

Cathy and Leah McElrath Renna