About Us
We are a small firm with a huge reach based on partnerships with leading public relations firms, creative production agencies, and policy analysts in the U.K. and Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia.
We are also a small full-service literary agency representing a wide range of nonfiction for the general adult trade market.
Donald B. Lehr has guided the The Nolan/Lehr Group as president since acquiring the company in 1989.
Lehr Media Group
The Nolan/Lehr Group is a communications consultancy based in New York City, with 30 years of experience guiding media relations and public affairs campaigns for foundations, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, and non-profit and for-profit corporations in diverse disciplines such as the environment, religion, science, ethics, and publishing.
Betsy Nolan Literary Agency
The Betsy Nolan Literary Agency was founded in 1980 by publicity maven Betsy Nolan. When a client gave her a manuscript titled THIN THIGHS IN 30 DAYS, Betsy knew it was too good an idea not to sell herself. The book went on to become an international mega-bestseller and the literary agency was born.
History
Donald Lehr acquired The Betsy Nolan Group, a leading public relations agency specializing in publishing, in 1989. Lehr had worked with Nolan on publicity campaigns in the 1980s for bestselling authors including James Clavell, Shirley Conran, Susan Isaacs, and Belva Plain. In the 1990s, Lehr continued his work in publishing, creating and implementing publicity campaigns for prestigious reference works including the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Random House Webster’s College Dictionary, Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, and HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion.
Since 1991, The Nolan/Lehr Group has directed international media relations and public affairs for the Templeton Prize, working directly with each Templeton Prize Laureate including, in the past decade, the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Jean Vanier, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, HM King Abdullah II, and Marcelo Gleiser. The 2012 Templeton Prize ceremony video, “The Dalai Lama at St. Paul’s,” co-produced by Lehr and the Prize team, was awarded the World Gold Medal for Online Television at the 2013 New York Festivals International Television & Film Awards.
The agency has consulted with a variety of non-governmental organizations engaged in climate change negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) since 2005. Lehr has attended each Conference of the Parties (COP) and most inter-session meetings since then, most recently on behalf of CLARA, the Climate Land Ambition & Rights Alliance, which includes climate justice advocates, faith groups, conservation groups, land-rights campaigners, agroecologists, and representatives of people’s movements around the globe. CLARA lobbies to protect forests and communities, restore ecosystems and food systems, and find ambitious pathways to respond to climate change rooted in social justice and agroecology.
Since 2016, Lehr has worked with the Switzerland-based Fondation Franz Weber, campaigning for the survival of the African elephant and a total ban on all trade in elephant ivory at the international negotiations of the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Lehr has also developed and implemented environmental communications strategies for the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University (since 1998) and for the Australian Koala Foundation, based in Brisbane (since 1994).