Pitch newsworthy, compelling stories to targeted reporters and editors. Provide relevant information and prepared spokespeople. Create online newsrooms. Organize informative press briefings, tours and events.

Successful community relations is about building understanding, trust and support for your program or project. It means recognizing that all change impacts the people who live, work and raise their families in the community. It takes a win/win approach to build support, address community concerns, minimize impacts and maximize benefits.

We can help you develop and implement strategies that will build community support for your project or program.

How do we do it?
We develop comprehensive plans using a variety of outreach strategies, from large community meetings to direct personal contacts. We start the outreach process early to gauge community opinion and solicit input. We produce informative materials and distribute them in multiple formats and set up lines of communication to foster dialogue and ensure accountability for follow-up.

We can help you present the value of your project or program to local decision makers and report how you have worked with the community to understand and respond to their constituents’ issues and concerns.

How do we do it?
We develop comprehensive strategic plans based on research and analysis, interviews and focus groups. We develop effective messages and materials so that our clients are well prepared for meetings with decision makers, public speaking engagements, and media interviews. And we commit to two-way communication to ensure that stakeholders are kept in the loop and up to date with the latest information.

We can help you build public awareness and support by tirelessly reaching out to the community, decision makers, the media and any other parties that are critical to your success.

For more information please review CDA Strategies’ effective mix of community, government, and media relations as well as campaign consulting services, and see samples of our communication materials.

Challenge: The measure required a two-thirds vote and was opposed by antitax advocates who felt Berkeley residents are overtaxed already.

Solution: CDA Strategies managed the campaign, which isolated the opposition with a message that “everybody agrees” about supporting the public schools. We collected endorsements from people on “both sides” of the political fence to illustrate that point. We also conducted a well-organized, grass-roots campaign of parents and students to raise money and campaign door to door.

Success: The measure won with 72 percent of the vote.

Challenge: To create new space to accommodate programs displaced by the retrofit, the YMCA had to close its last racquetball court without sparking a major protest by its dedicated users. In addition, the YMCA was determined to keep its membership intact and fully informed throughout the 10-month process.

Solution: CDA Strategies worked with the YMCA Communication Committee to develop the messages and tools needed to reach the Y’s many constituencies. We helped YMCA managers negotiate with the racquetball players. We conducted focus groups with members and staff; developed a PowerPoint presentation and Frequently Asked Questions; set up an online project information page and listserve and produced a brochure, postcards, posters, and other collateral to explain the project and keep members updated.

Success: YMCA members have expressed great satisfaction with the communication effort and more than 1,000 signed up to receive email updates. The YMCA staff increased its internal communication capacity and has effectively used the tools we developed. Most importantly, the project is on schedule and there has been no decline in membership.

For more information go to: www.baymca.org/grow

Challenge: Faced with a very short timeline and a limited budget, San Francisco-based Resource Media hired CDA Strategies to help generate national media coverage for the report’s release.

Solution: Working with Resource Media, CDA Strategies coordinated a large group of international scientists in several time zones, organized a successful press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC and handled media inquiries from around the world. Importantly, we framed the release of this report as the “definitive scientific consensus report” effectively ending the “debate” over global warming.

Success: CDA Strategies gained national coverage for the release of the “Arctic Climate Impact Assessment” in a time when coverage of climate change was scarce. Coverage appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time Magazine and on major television networks and international media outlets.

For more information: http://www.acia.uaf.edu/

Challenge: Opposition came from downtown merchants, preservationists, people who thought the project was too big, people who opposed more affordable housing in the downtown area and those who felt it was a city land give-away.

Solution: CDA Strategies organized the public outreach campaign that addressed these concerns. We worked with local merchants to ensure parking would be replaced. We promoted the building’s green design by a world-renowned architect setting standards in environmental design to counter critics of the design.

We built alliances among the environmental, affordable housing and smart-growth communities resulting in a successful letter-writing campaign and turning people out to testify at public meetings and demonstrate overwhelmingly widespread support for the project.

Success: The project received its use permit. However, opponents staged a last-minute referendum attempt to stop the project. CDA Strategies helped out-organize the opponents and prevented them from gathering enough signatures through an intense, grassroots counter-campaign.

For more information: www.browercenter.org