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THOMPSON — The Thompson Ecumenical Empowerment Group recently received the Connecticut Valley Chapter of PRSA Mercury Award for its recent public relations campaign.
The TEEG Annual Campaign received the Gold Award, the highest honor in the category of Strategic Campaigns/Community Relations for Not-For-Profits. TEEG, supported by the creative team of MAD Communications and Angell House Design, developed a comprehensive community relations and public awareness campaign to recruit an army of volunteers to finish the construction of the Thompson Social Services Building. “TEEG is forever grateful for the professional services provided by MAD Communications and Angell House Design. Their donation of time, professional services and award-winning talent has helped us get our message to the community,” said Donna Grant, TEEG executive director.
The goal of the campaign was to offset at least 50% of the construction cost, nearly $1 million, in sweat equity and donated materials. While the town would ultimately be the owner of the building, no local tax dollars were to be spent on its construction. The communications campaign kicked off with a call for volunteers, professional contractors who would be willing to donate their time to lead the various phases, while tradesmen and workers were recruited to complete the finish work of the interior. The central elements of the campaign were: the 2011 Annual Report, the TEEG Facebook page and website, press releases, speaking engagements and media events, including many on-air building updates with WINY, the local AM station.
Throughout the project, progress updates were sent to a variety of media outlets on a regular basis with social media serving as a way to achieve immediate response or call to action. The 2011 Annual Report was designed to communicate the unique approach to this building project with a theme of “Building a Stronger Community,” and featured community volunteers and legislative partners who supported the project.
The success of the campaign is evident in the culmination of the building itself, in addition to the primary goals of the project being met: construction of the facility without the use of any local tax dollars and the raising of significantly more than 50% of the building cost through sweat equity and donations. A total of 217 individuals from 12 different towns volunteered a total of 14, 963 hours.
Ultimately, the greatest measure of the success of the strategic communications campaign is the overwhelming public support and “buy in” generated. Financial giving to TEEG is up significantly over the previous year despite economic downturn. Total reach generated by TEEG Facebook increased 1604% from the year before, with a 65% increase in new visitors to the TEEG website. More people are aware of the value that the agency provides to the community and those who a made a personal contribution in time and effort are now personally invested in TEEG’s future success.