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Campaign Proposal

A Step Toward Relief Campaign

Callie Fentress Emily Hannah Esther Hong

John McBride Erin Seely

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Table of Contents Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................. 3

Situation Analysis .................................................................................................................................... 4

Organizational History .............................................................................................................................. 5

Mission /Philosophy ................................................................................................................................. 5

Organizational Structure ........................................................................................................................... 6

Organizational Policies .............................................................................................................................. 6

Organizational Environment ..................................................................................................................... 6

SWOT Analysis........................................................................................................................................... 8

Situation Analysis Summary .................................................................................................................... 15

Research .................................................................................................................................................. 16

NRCA Non-Faith-Based Partner Survey .................................................................................................. 18

NRCA Non-Faith-Based Partner Survey Results ...................................................................................... 19

Social Media / Web Content Analysis ..................................................................................................... 20

Social Media / Web Content Results ...................................................................................................... 21

Donor Survey Method ............................................................................................................................. 22

Donor Survey Results .............................................................................................................................. 23

Faith-Based Partners Survey ................................................................................................................... 24

Faith-Based Partner Survey Results ........................................................................................................ 25

NRCA Volunteers / Staff Survey .............................................................................................................. 26

NRCA Staff / Volunteer Survey Results ................................................................................................... 27

Publics ..................................................................................................................................................... 28

Opportunity Statement ......................................................................................................................... 33

Campaign Plan ........................................................................................................................................ 34

Goal Statement ....................................................................................................................................... 35

Logo and Slogan Justifications ................................................................................................................ 36

Objectives ............................................................................................................................................... 37

A Step Toward Relief Budget .................................................................................................................. 42

Campaign Calendar ................................................................................................................................. 43

Implementation Materials ..................................................................................................................... 48

Evaluation Plan ....................................................................................................................................... 64

.................................................................................................................................................................... 64

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Executive Summary

The A Step Toward Relief campaign proposal is divided into four parts: the situation analysis and research, campaign plan, implementation materials, and evaluation. Background on the internal

and external factors affecting New River Community Action’s Emergency Assistance Program is presented in the situation analysis and research portion as well as NRCA’s strengths,

weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The campaign plan states the goal for the A Step Toward Relief campaign and outlines specific objectives and strategies to reach that goal. Ten sample

implementation materials for the EAP are included to support the strategies outlined. The evaluation states how successful completion of the objectives will be measured, ultimately

achieving the goals for the A Step Toward Relief campaign.

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Situation Analysis

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Organizational History

New River Community Action (NRCA) is a private non-profit organization, serving the New River Valley (NRV) of Virginia and its most vulnerable community members. NRCA serves the four counties that comprise the New River Valley (Floyd, Giles, Montgomery, and Pulaski) and the City of Radford. Seniors, people with disabilities, veterans, ex-offenders, young families, homeless people, infants, and children are among the many residents that benefit from NRCA and its highly rated and successful programs.1

NRCA was established in 1965 in response to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 for his “War on Poverty” campaign. Across the country today, there are about 1,000 Community Action programs. Funding for Community Action programs like NRCA is provided through the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG). When community need exceeds the funding available through the CSBG, Community Action organizations rely on community and state government grant opportunities, funding awards from private or community foundations, and corporate-sponsored grants or aid. Securing support from state and local governments, foundations, or corporations typically includes the need for dedicated grant writers and stiff competition from other organization vying for limited resources. The gap between community need and grant support is filled through the generous, tax-deductible, support from community residents, local faith-based organizations, volunteers, and corporate partners.2

At NRCA, there are two formal services as part of its Emergency Assistance Program: The Floyd Backpack Program,3 established in 2007, and the Interfaith Food Pantry, established in 1987.4 These programs offer vulnerable community members in the NRV temporary assistance in tough situations. In addition to the food banks, NRCA’s EAP supports community members in need of emergency assistance with rent payments, utilities, mortgages, medical bills, childcare costs, or other short-term needs.

Throughout its more than 50 years of service, NRCA has been guided by a philosophy that its services offer members of the community “a hand up, not a handout.”

Mission /Philosophy

According to New River Community Action’s website, New River Community Action’s mission is “to promote and support the well-being and self-reliance of individuals, families and communities.”5 The Emergency Assistance Program within NRCA is a short-term program designed to offer temporary relief to residents of the New River Valley or transients who are 200% poverty income or below or generally struggling financially.6 Whether it is due to high medical or utility bills, low income, health issues, costly childcare, transportation, debilitating debt, housing issues, or a range of other potential emergency situations, NRCA’s Emergency Assistance Program strives to aid these individuals in any way possible.

1 http://newrivercommunityaction.org/ 2 http://newrivercommunityaction.org/ 3 https://newrivercommunityaction.org/floyd-backpack-program/ 4 http://newrivercommunityaction.org/IFP/about-us/ 5 http://newrivercommunityaction.org/mission/ 6 http://newrivercommunityaction.org/emergency-assistance-program/

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Organizational Structure

The Emergency Assistance Program is one of many programs that falls under the umbrella of NRCA’s services in the New River Valley community. The organization as a whole strives to help individuals and families through challenging times, and to promote the general well-being of those in the community. The EAP focuses on those who are in financial crisis.7 Participants must show both proof of income and proof of crisis in order to receive assistance, and must have exhausted all other options (personal savings and government aid) before coming to NRCA for help.8 This program focuses on immediate relief, and oftentimes those who use the Emergency Assistance Program will only be one-time users of NRCA programs. The EAP is sustained entirely off monetary donations, seeing that government funding for such programs was cut over 10 years ago. Once donation funds start to get low, or in some cases are completely drained, the EAP is halted until more funds become available.

Organizational Policies

The EAP offers six services to eligible clients on a first come, first serve basis. Eligible clients must not have a household income of more than 200% of the federal poverty income guidelines. One service includes support for rent or mortgage payments. The EAP’s partial rent or mortgage payments supplement the household’s payment so that a full payment can be made for that month. If the household cannot support the payment, then the landlord must be willing to accept a partial payment from NRCA. NRCA does not make full rent/mortgage payments, and each payment must cover rent or mortgage for another 30 days.9

Additionally, the EAP will offer support for utilities if the utility company sends a termination notice or has disconnected utilities of the client. If a heating fuel tank needs to be refilled, the EAP can assist when the need is dire and less than 10% of the fuel tank is full. Medical payments are assessed on a case-by-case basis and do not cover narcotics or controlled substances. Gasoline payments must be used for doctor appointments, homeless shelters, job interviews, and work before the first paycheck. Hire date, interviews, and doctor’s appointments must be verified.10

Proof of household income must be provided for Blacksburg Interfaith Food Pantry eligibility.11 The Floyd County Backpack Program is available to children who receive free or reduced-cost meals at Floyd County Schools.

Organizational Environment

New River Community Action consists of many different programs. These range from the Emergency Assistance Program to Adult Programs to Children’s Programs. Emergency Assistance Programs cover these areas: Giles County, Floyd County, Radford City, Montgomery County, Pulaski County, and Blacksburg. Adult Programs consist of Virginia Cares, Homeless and Housing Programs, Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, To Our House, and Swift Start.

7 http://newrivercommunityaction.org/emergency-assistance-program/ 8 http://newrivercommunityaction.org/emergency-assistance-program/ 9 Retrieved from the Emergency Assistance Food Pantries Brochure 10 Retrieved from the Emergency Assistance Food Pantries Brochure 11 Retrieved from the Emergency Assistance Food Pantries Brochure

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Children's Programs are Children’s Health Improvement Partnership, Head Start and Floyd Backpack Program. These programs provide temporary assistance to the New River Valley community.12

NRCA has a strong volunteer base of 1,739 volunteers who worked 26,914 hours, providing services to 10,728 unduplicated individuals in 2017-2018. New River Community Action works with numerous citizen groups to develop and implement agency programs. Volunteers who serve on the agency Board of Directors as well as various program Advisory Councils work in partnership with the staff. There are volunteer opportunities available for service to NRCA programs and its participants as well as internship opportunities for students.13

NRCA relies heavily on donations as a source to maintain its programs. Many of the donations come from churches.14 There are opportunities to donate on its website or through the mail.

A SWOT Analysis is a widely used strategy to investigate and to assess the organization’s situation. SWOT is an acronym that stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. There are two primary environments that a SWOT Analysis assesses: the internal environment and the external environment(s). Analysis of the internal environment, also known as the microenvironment, investigates organizational-level forces such as current alliances and partners, past performances, resources, service delivery, management support of public relations, issue priorities in the organization, and consideration of any internal publics. Microenvironment assessments aim to identify organizational-level strengths and weaknesses that must be considered when developing a public relations campaign. For example, a decrease in human or financial resources for NRCA’s Emergency Assistance Programs is a weakness because it threatens the amount of community support the organization can offer.

Analysis of the external environment, also known as the macroenvironment, includes assessment of economic, political/legal, cultural, technological, demographic, and natural forces in the environment that influence the organization or could influence a public relations campaign. External publics are also part of the macroenvironment assessment. Macroenvironment analysis results in the articulation of opportunities and threats for the organization and its public relations goal. In the case of a community action organization like New River Community Action, there are community-level, state-level, and federal-level opportunities and threats, so it is important that the macroenvironment analysis extend to the broadest level where environmental forces impact the organization. For example, since some grants and funding for community action organizations are provided at the federal and state levels, the economic forces are felt when the support at the federal level or the state level is decreased or in jeopardy of decrease. Community-level external forces are also assessed as these are often the most impactful since they are the most proximate. External, macroenvironmental forces that either create opportunities for the organization or pose threat, or potential threat, are reported in the SWOT chart below as opportunities or threats.

12 http://newrivercommunityaction.org/ 13 Retrieved from the Emergency Assistance Food Pantries Brochure 14 Retrieved from the Emergency Assistance Food Pantries Brochure

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SWOT Analysis

Strengths

• Dedicated volunteers • Faith-based partnerships • Strong resources

Weaknesses

• Limited Social Media • Website • Discretionary Funds

Opportunities

• Scheduled messages/social media • Social media campaign • Social media intern • Potential partnership/service

organization • Publicity & promotions

Threats

• Economic instability • Misperceptions of Emergency

Assistance • Competing for funds

The SWOT analysis identifies three core strengths and three identifiable weaknesses within NRCA’s Emergency Assistance programs that factor into the program’s success. Each of these factors is discussed in more detail below.

Strengths Dedicated volunteer group

Volunteer retention can be seen as one of the most important aspects of NPO.15 “It costs NPO at least five times more to recruit a new volunteer than to cultivate greater relationship with existing ones.”16 Therefore, a high retention rate can lower the cost of running the operation.17 According to Sheila West, NRCA’s food pantries have a dedicated volunteer base, so retention is one of its greatest strengths.

Faith-based partnerships

Partnerships are critically important when it comes to the Backpack Program and other emergency assistance programs. The Blacksburg Interfaith Food Pantry is a network of more than 25 faith-based congregations and has more than 200 volunteers. This is a strength for now, but Christian churchgoers tend to be in the 50-65+ age range in America, which is only 44% of

15 Finkelstein, M. A. (2008). Volunteer satisfaction and volunteer action: A functional approach. Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, 36(1), 9-17. 16 Mitchell, Mark Andrew & Taylor, Susan (2004). Internal marketing: Key to successful volunteer programs. Nonprofit World, 22(1), 25-26. 17 Fu, Ya Chiang, (2011). https://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/infolit_usra/2

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the U.S. adult population.18 There is an opportunity to reach a younger audience in philanthropic organizations for materials and funding.

Strong resources

Physical donations (or “visible” donations — donations given by a person or group that are public) are the primary sources for NRCA’s donations. A majority of NRCA’s donations come from mailed checks rather than online.19 An opportunity for an increase in online donations is present.

Five percent of NRCA’s budget goes to emergency assistance, which came out to $362,073 in 2019.20 While the low budget allotment may initially seem like a weakness, it seems that most of NRCA’s funding comes from outside the organization. The Floyd Backpack Program, which only operates in Floyd County, is an example of an NRCA program that is fully funded by private donors like the New River Valley Health Foundation and Empty Bowls.21

Weaknesses

Limited Social Media New River Community Action has a sparse Facebook presence and low engagement on Facebook posts. According to the Blacksburg Interfaith Food Pantry’s Facebook page, it has 71 followers and 65 likes.22 Strengthening Facebook would be beneficial considering that in the past few years, 43% of Millennials made charitable contributions through social media compared to other channels.23 NRCA has a YouTube channel that has not been active since July 25, 2019.24 Averaging 55.7 views per video, opening up a Twitter account would be more advantageous. Twitter can be utilized for payment reminders and upcoming events which would increase audience engagement. An important public is overlooked, according to the blog, “25 Twitter Stats All Marketers Need to now in 2020,” 44% of 18 to 24-year-olds in the U.S. use and 92% of the U.S. population is familiar with Twitter.25 Utilizing both Facebook and Twitter can be used to inform people inside the New River Valley community to better understand the program’s mission and goals. Strengthening social media engagement would enable NRCA to reach a broader audience and disseminate its message with a greater reach into the community. Social media creates this opportunity for nonprofit organizations with engagement, which involves two-way communication between nonprofit organizations and social media users.26

18Lipka, Michael, (2016). http://pewrsr.ch/29IKAvg 19 Retrieved from Sheila West, class visit. 20 NRCA annual report: https://user-23310503727.cld.bz/Annual-Report-2018-19 21 https://newrivercommunityaction.org/floyd-backpack-program/ 22 https://www.facebook.com/BburgInterfaithFoodPantry/?__tn__=%2Cd%2CP-R&eid=ARDKX7GLtFZEcTgjmJiECQTF9I4KfKPHBH4Ns77U-vdITfmXzo7MOwBnLDQuip59PSW5mMRbhOeG9rEt 23 https://donorbox.org/nonprofit-blog/nonprofits-gained-donors-through-social-media/ 24 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbGsH2dIWBw 25 https://blog.hootsuite.com/twitter-statistics/ 26 https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/7368/Carboni_2015_effective.pdf?sequence=1

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Website The NRCA website is slow. The website lags when users access it on a laptop. Lag time and loading delays are typically caused by the volume of pictures on the website.27 Consequently, selecting fewer images for the website would help. Additionally, the logo detail could be clearer. Overall, these details would help the content on the website to be more concise. As mentioned in the article by CrazyEgg, a web design portal, the three important elements of creating a website are that it is goal-oriented, designed for skimmers and responsive.28 Discretionary Funds There is a lack of financial resources ever since budget cuts from 2005. Much of its funding comes from outside NRCA.29 The purpose of the discretionary fund is to provide financial assistance to activities.30

Opportunities Scheduled messages/social media Because of NRCA’s sparse Facebook presence and lack of other social media, there is an opportunity to take advantage of a social media management platform such as Hootsuite to plan content and stick to a content calendar. This will give NRCA the opportunity to use multiple social media platforms if it chooses to reach more people as well as make its existing social media pages look more purposeful and provide more relevant information to prospective visitors. One example of a successful social media campaign assisted by Hootsuite is a case study titled “British Museum,” in which the British Museum in England increased its social media engagement by 126%.31 This was achieved by drafting a two-year strategic plan with the main strategy of using Hootsuite to increase engagement and reach, improve customer service, and identify opportunities for revenue generation. The museum took advantage of the many services Hootsuite provides by using (1) the Hootsuite dashboard to manage all aspects of the social media content life cycle and to develop channel-specific content for each social media channel and (2) the Hootsuite reporting and tracking features to ensure the most relevant content was being posted at the times the target audience was most active. The results indicated that the museum pulled ahead of its peers in terms of online interaction and engagement and increased its followers more than 100%.

27https://www.eurovps.com/blog/reasons-for-slow-website-loading/ 28 https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/best-website-layouts/ 29 Retrieved from Sheila West, class visit. 30https://books.google.co.kr/books?id=FYiHYtu6f9wC&pg=PA47023&lpg=PA47023&dq=discretionary+funds+nonprofit&source=bl&ots=ZkuDL2izex&sig=ACfU3U20oiMzMrkU9uIc5yKMuOjv1RErA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiLx5DAvpvpAhXLG6YKHY6JCXo4FBDoATABegQICRAB#v=onepage&q=discretionary%20funds%20nonprofit&f=false 31 Hootsuite Inc. (n.d.). British Museum Case Study - Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard. Retrieved from https://hootsuite.com/resources/british-museum-increased-engagement

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Social media campaign There is an opportunity to utilize Facebook to promote the EAP. By managing a social media campaign via Facebook, the client would reach many viewers via online sharing, engagement, and targeted advertisements, and as a result increase awareness of the EAP. According to a case study on Facebook for Business, Clif Bar & Company successfully managed a social media campaign via Facebook with the goal of attracting new customers and generating awareness for their new products. Clif Bar & Company partnered with a digital agency to run an awareness campaign by using Facebook’s News Feed and Stories features and their in-stream mobile video placement to showcase a series of 15-second video ads related to branding and a message high in taste appeal. Clif Bar & Company showed these videos to their target audience of health conscious, active, adventure-seekers and to younger individuals with similar interests in order to increase their younger consumer base. The month-long campaign results were reported as a 28-point lift in ad recall, a 12-point lift in brand/product awareness, and a 6.8-point lift in purchase intent.32 Social media intern According to West, NRCA has previously taken on two Radford University interns to assist in day to day tasks. NRCA could take advantage of Virginia Tech PR students’ knowledge of the public relations discipline (including crisis and issues management, media relations, social media, community relations, social and corporate responsibility) by hiring an unpaid intern to manage the social media and assist with any extra tasks. Virginia Tech would be able to offer course credit to the intern in exchange for their work, so the internship would not require any financial compensation. According to the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech, VT is 1 of 40 programs in the nation accredited by the Public Relations Society of America, the official governing body of Public Relations. Additionally, Virginia Tech’s public relations program carries PRSA certification and students complete a course of study certified by the PRSA.33 Potential partnership/service organization There is an opportunity for NRCA to potentially partner with one of Virginia Tech’s service fraternities to take on the Emergency Assistance Program as a philanthropy. One of the fraternities specifically based on service and volunteering is a good match for NRCA because the service organizations share the mission to help people in the community and beyond. Service organizations require student members to complete required service hours. Food and material drives are examples of services NRCA needs and service organizations complete in the community. Such a partnership is mutually beneficial for NRCA and the student service organizations.

32 Clif Bar. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/business/success/clif-bar 33 Retrieved from https://liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-and-schools/department-of-communication/academic-programs/public-relations-major.html)

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Partnership with university service organizations is an important way nonprofit organization can work together with students to build better communities and accomplish goals related to their missions. According to an academic journal article titled Perceptions of Partnership: A Study on Nonprofit and Higher Education Collaboration, community-campus partnerships are beneficial for students by providing the opportunity to gain hands-on experience and professional development as well as for community-based organizations to gain the assistance and dedication of students to help the efforts toward their mission.34 The author advises that community-campus partnerships should dedicate the majority of their attention to community-based research in response to the community’s priorities and challenges they face. In NRCA’s case, this includes research for public relations opportunities, research about potential ways to secure more resources, funding, and community involvement for the Emergency Assistance Program. Publicity & promotion PR strategy and tools are encouraged, and likely required, for successful social media campaigns. Strategic public relations are important to ensure a successful social media campaign. Social media tools and affordances enable campaign planners to engage publics at low cost. Additionally, the benefits of detailed campaign and audience research enable organizations to target specific publics and reach goals, including goals established by NRCA, such as increasing community participation and increasing fundraising. The Emergency Assistance Program appears ideally situated for the benefits possible through a coordinated and strategic social media campaign and the promotion and publicity opportunities such campaigns generate. According to information from the text, Public Relations Campaigns, “the most effective public relations campaigns are built around stakeholder needs and utilize strategic public relations by obtaining accurate information about the challenges they are facing, the target publics, the effectiveness of each communication initiative, and the relational impacts that each program has with stakeholders.” The textbook highlights a campaign that took place during the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis in which the White House Office of Digital Strategy conducted a crowdfunding social media campaign to raise money for the crisis. American support was solicited by using the hashtag #AidRefugees and the campaign efforts raised more than $1 million dollars.35

Threats Economic Instability

The client mentioned that the amount of people using the NRCA Emergency Assistance Program has dropped from 12,000 individuals in 2018, to 9,000 in 2019. Although this is a favorable decrease, which means fewer community residents faced emergency situations, it is also a very unstable number. Unexpected events, such as the recently announced 700 layoffs from the Volvo plant in Pulaski and the coronavirus pandemic, could affect these numbers greatly, and very quickly.36 This means that funding is never truly secure, because even if monetary funds increase, so can the number of clients at any given moment. The client also made it clear that, due to cuts nearly 15 years ago in government funding, the Emergency Assistance Program

34Dr. Kara Trebil-Smith, https://iacampuscompact.org/wp-content/uploads/large/sites/29/2019/03/Perceptions-of-Partnership_toWebsite.pdf 35 https://us.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-assets/90227_book_item_90227.pdf 36 (Nexstar Media Group Inc.https://www.wfxrtv.com/news/local-news/volvo-confirms-layoff-of-700-at-new-river-valley-plant-beginning-jan-20-2020/

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budget depends solely on the financial and in-kind contributions of generous donors. Therefore, when donor-contributed funds run low, NRCA is forced to slow down if not completely halt services. Low funds and a halt in NRCA support adds yet another element of uncertainty for the EAP.

Misperceptions of Emergency Assistance

Assistance programs may often be perceived as handouts, instead of hand-ups by a portion of the community. When these programs are seen as a handout, questions often arise, and people make assumptions about the recipients’ circumstances. During the initial client meeting with Sheila West, she outlined the process residents must go through to receive assistance from the NRCA Emergency Assistance Program. First, residents must go through Social Services and be confirmed as meeting the criteria of 200% poverty, or below, based on federal poverty guidelines. Once Social Services confirms that residents qualify for assistance, they are referred to the EAP. Additionally, residents and transients seeking assistance must provide proof of need, presenting NRCA with bills or other proof of financial crisis, pay stubs for the last four weeks, statements from employers, or income tax statements.37 Many residents not using these programs are unaware of how extensive the process is to receive financial assistance, and therefore assume it is simply handed to them and an immediate process. Many Americans, with the support of conservative economists, feel that aid programs promote laziness. They also say that they feel these programs “encourage families to stay poor.”38 All of these outside misperceptions could make NRV residents less likely to donate money and time to the programs, which poses a threat due to the high amount of resources that need to come from donations and volunteers. While there are certainly citizens who take advantage of social programs, the vast majority of research evidence suggests that citizens take enormous pride in the ability to earn a paycheck, take pride in the work they do, and will transition off social programs when job opportunities and safe and affordable housing are available.

However, the perceptions, and misperceptions, can also be held by those who might benefit from the EAP. For example, a young family may feel too much pride to participate in the Children’s Health Improvement Program, also a program of CHIP, even though their child may benefit from the program’s resources. Sometimes people are ashamed to admit that they receive help, whether that be with paying bills, supplying food, or their children's education. This is evidence that there is community stigma, or judgment, in acceptance of social program support. The client says that they see this especially with middle class families that have fallen on hard times but are too proud to admit they need help. Senior citizens are also unlikely to reach out when they need help.39 One reason they cite is internal stigma, which is when the person in need of help may feel too ashamed to admit they need help caring for themselves or may feel they will be judged by others they know.

Competing for Funds

Most nonprofits receive a majority, if not all, of their funds from donations. The Emergency Assistance Program is one such program due to government funding cuts that occurred more

37 (https://newrivercommunityaction.org/emergency-assistance-program/) 38 https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/welfare-childhood/555119/ 39 https://www.ncoa.org/wp-content/uploads/An-End-to-Stigma-Issue-Brief-NCOA.pdf

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than 10 years ago. Despite the fact that West characterized the nonprofit community as an incredibly supportive community in the New River Valley, characterized by organizations with similar missions working together in times of need, there is still considerable competition for a finite set of community resources. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of registered nonprofits in the U.S. increased by 24%, but the amount of private donations being made did not increase at the same rate. More people are competing for the same amount of money, meaning that nonprofits have to come up with new tactics to sway donations in their favor.40 This increased competition and therefore increased need for donor solicitation means that nonprofits need to spend higher fractions of donations on fundraising efforts. For organizations like NRCA, and the EAP specifically, this is a big problem since it is already stretched extremely thin when it comes to financial and human resources.

40 https://econ.washington.edu/sites/econ/files/old-site-uploads/2014/11/Bose_jmpaper.pdf

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Situation Analysis Summary

The above situation analysis provides a framework for New River Community Action to begin working toward the goals of the A Step Toward Relief campaign. The greatest internal strengths for the Emergency Action Program are a dedicated volunteer base and strong relationships with faith-based partners. Weaknesses, however, that affect the EAP are its limited social media presence, a slow-loading website, and a lack of internal funding for the program. There are several opportunities for the EAP to capitalize on, including implementing a social media campaign with a content calendar, a dedicated social media intern, finding new partners, and better publicity and promotion materials. External threats are the looming threat of economic instability, the misperceptions of the EAP by the public, and competition for funds among similar organizations. The A Step Toward Relief campaign addresses all of the aspects of the SWOT analysis found to improve EAP’s publicity and fundraising efforts.

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Research

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The research phase of Public Relations Campaigns was interrupted by the Coronavirus pandemic and the resulting order by Virginia Governor Northam to shelter-in-place and practice social distancing. Virginia Tech administration determined that the best course of action was to move instruction online following a two-week Spring Break period. Prior to the shelter-in-place order, Public Relations Campaigns completed a 75-minute client interview and completed secondary research assessment of a 2018 volunteer and staff survey, a 2018 survey of faith-based partners of NRCA, a 2018 donor survey, a social media and website analysis, and a 2018 survey of corporate partners. A 2019 community survey focused on poverty was also used as a source of data by some campaigns.

PR Teams were provided access to the New River Community Action Implementation plan (2018-2021) to assess which endeavors NRCA was planning to implement so that campaign strategies were consistent with implementation goals of the organization or were an extension of planned activities. As part of the requirements of Federal government funding support to some of its programs, NRCA is required to assess the funded programs every three years. Teams accessed the assessment reports for Children’s Health Improvement Program (CHIP), an assessment of HeadStart staff and a HeadStart client survey, and a focus group of NRCA program heads and administrators focused on affordable housing, transportation, child care, employment, and homelessness.

It was expected that we would launch an online survey to gather additional information from community members about Emergency Assistance program recognition, attitudes, and prior or future intent to support. Since Emergency Assistance was heavily impacted by the pandemic and was overwhelmed with implementing emergency community measures to assess food, shelter, and financial needs, it was a conflict of message to distribute a survey. It was also determined that testing campaign messages for evaluation of implementation materials was not wise.

It is clear that the situation the client is facing is considerably different since the situation analysis was completed. Time does not allow teams to go back and recreate the situation analysis. However, the assessment of the opportunities and threats remain – only now the threats are significantly more manifest and more severe for the community. It will be important for the foreseeable future for NRCA’s Emergency Assistance programs to generate food and personal item donations to meet the ongoing impact of the pandemic on the community. NRCA’s expressed interest in generating unrestricted donations is also more important than ever. Unrestricted donations allow NRCA’s Emergency Assistance programs to move resources where they are needed in the community and to support more residents with their housing or shelter, utility, transportation, child care, or other emergent needs.

Results of the 75-minute client interview are cited throughout the situation analysis as it was helpful in identifying organizational strengths and weaknesses and opportunities and threats in the New River Valley and beyond. The following pages present the 2018 research and the information PR Campaigns used for secondary analysis.

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NRCA Non-Faith-Based Partner Survey

Goal

The goal of this survey research with non-faith-based partners is to identify their common perceptions of NRCA’s communication and promotion tactics. PR Campaigns sought partners’ responses regarding perceptions of NRCA direct communication with the partners and perceptions of external communication with other key publics.

Audience/Public: Non-faith-based partners

Shiela West provided PR Campaigns with the names of forty-four of NRCA’s non-faith-based partners, which included private non-profits, city/town, county, and state administered organizations, and for-profit organizations and coalitions.

Justification

Conducting this primary research with NRCA partners will help assess major areas of need within NRCA’s communication tactics and practices. Partners are an essential public for non-profit organizations, so assessing the attitudes, knowledge, and practices of these partner publics helps ensure that emerging opportunities become apparent and potential problems are identified. Since the non-profit environment is extremely competitive in the New River Valley, it is important to monitor NRCA partner perceptions so that opportunities may be pursued and potential threats or problems resolved. This public also has the potential to spread NRCA’s mission among other potential non-faith-based partners.

Sample Units of Analysis—to speak with partners’ head of outreach

1. How long has your organization had a relationship with NRCA? What initial dialogue engaged the partner with the NRCA? What dialogue and communication makes the partner remain committed?

2. What methods of NRCA’s interaction with the partner do they find most and least engaging? In what ways would the partner like to see NRCA improve their communications with them/similar partners?

3. In what ways would the partner like to see NRCA improve their external branding, messaging and communications?

4. Do you engage on social media? Are you aware of NRCA’s presence on social media?

5. What community partnerships does the partner believe would be most beneficial for NRCA to establish in order to shift the public perception that poverty is a result of apathy vs. a legitimate social problem?

6. What partnerships does the partner believe would be most beneficial to establish in order to reach a broader audience and increase public knowledge of NRCA and what they do?

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NRCA Non-Faith-Based Partner Survey Results

● Primary method of communication with partners seems to vary: ○ Letters, over the phone, face-to-face, email

■ Electronic communication is not consistent to all partners ● NRCA has a broad base of support because of their mission, but there is significant room to improve communication efforts on nearly every front, including partner-NRCA relationships.

○ Floyd county Social Services Dept: “No communication from NRCA makes our organization remain committed to the partnership between our organizations; it is the fact that we share the same mission of serving clients in need in Floyd County and both agency are committed to having a strong partnership.”

● NRCA has untapped potential to use partners for communication outreach beyond a space to post flyers.

○ EX: partners’ e-newsletters, social media promotion, other methods of promotion via partners, feature stories/shout outs, etc.

● Most effective comm efforts of NRCA to partners: ○ Person-to-person, Telephone calls, Email

● Comm efforts to improve from NRCA to partners: ○ Social Media ○ Print media (newspapers, print advertising)

■ While it is already an effective practice of NRCA, it could be more engaging, accurate, concise to better describe the organization and its programs. ■ More print media sponsoring NRCA for partners to share with their clients

● Social Media ○ Top 3 platforms NRCA should focus on, in order: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram ○ Use SM strategically for different audiences. For younger audiences, SM would be an effective method of engagement, but strategically placing physical and printed materials in public locations (i.e., grocery stores, doctor’s offices, pharmacies, etc.) may be better for older adults not on social media.

● Storytelling to focus on disseminating to the general NRV public: ○ The stigma of poverty being people who are just too lazy to work hard

■ Strategies to better deliver this message to the general public of the NRV: ● Present more real data on what real poverty (especially poverty in the NRV) looks like and its effects on individuals and families. ● Use Social Media to help correct false attitudes toward poverty. ● Promotion of effective slogans that communicate the message you want community members to embrace.

○ How the various programs of NRCA can benefit the people in the NRV.

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Social Media / Web Content Analysis

Goal

The goal of the social media and web content analysis is to detect if NRCA’s social media posts are effectively reaching their audience in comparison to their other promotional efforts. The analysis includes consideration of the interactive quality of NRCA’s social media, presence of photos and videos, and number of engagement aspects (e.g., likes, shares, loves, re-tweets).

Justification

New River Community Action’s social media and web platforms are important to analyze since this is a significant form of communication for non-profit organizations to engage the community. NRCA uses a wide array of social media platforms, so general observations and patterns across the platforms will serve to help understand the strengths and weaknesses of their existing communication strategies. Identifying potential strengths and weaknesses of their social media will help identify communication tactics for NRCA to continue and tactics NRCA may wish to adopt.

Units of Analysis

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewRiverCommunityAction/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nrca19

Instagram: @newriverca

Website: http://newrivercommunityaction.org

Sample Units of Analysis

1. What is the following of each social media site NRCA has?

A. Are their followers local or national?

2. How many posts are they averaging a month?

B. Are their postings consistent?

3. How many engagements are their posts averaging a month? (Likes and Comments)

4. Do their posts include engaging pictures or videos?

5. What type of posts do they post? Is it informational? Is it about a community event or activity they hosted? Discussion about one of their publics?

6. Which platform engages the most public?

7. What are the most effective methods of getting different publics to engage?

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Social Media / Web Content Results

Strengths

The organization has good reviews on their main platforms: Facebook and Google. When people search for NRCA, their ratings and comments are positive. 4.8 rating on Facebook and Google

NRCA is transparent with their internal activities. They update their channels in events such as job hiring, keeping their public up to date with the organization internally.

NRCA’s response rate is very quick, which is a positive because if someone needs assistance or contact, the NRCA responds in a timely manner. Facebook – An automatic message pops up before they respond.

Weaknesses

New River Community Action’s (NRCA) number of followers on all social media platforms is limited. This following is insufficient for an organization serving over 130,000 people; thus, they need to increase their number of followers.

o Facebook – 1,157 followers o Twitter – 60 followers o Instagram – 139 followers

NRCA has very little engagements on their posts across all social media platforms. Only a few of their followers are active. Most of their posts receive as little as 1-2 likes, comments, and shares. This creates an inability to create a relationship with their public.

o Twitter – 1-2 likes on average for a tweet

Most of the organization’s content on all platforms are brochures and flyers. Although it may inform the public, it doesn’t interest or engage them. It can lead to a cognitive overload as they continue to repost the same flyers. They need to post more imagery and videos.

o Their videos on Facebook are slideshows of pictures, which is an ineffective way to engage their audience.

NRCA posts very inconsistently. Some months have a lot of postings, while other months have as little as 3-4 postings. They should set a schedule for their postings on their various social media platforms.

o Twitter 2018 Posts § 9 posts in June 2018, 21 posts in May 2018, 11 posts in April 2018, 4 posts in March 2018

o Instagram 2018 Posts § 4 posts in June 2018, 23 posts in May 2018, 9 posts in April 2018, 6 posts in March 2018

The imagery that the organization posts are not being tagged. There are no “Alt texts” or hashtags of photos on any social media platform they have. People cannot recognize their organization, buildings, programs or community if they are not spreading the word effectively.

o The image search on Google for the organization is non-existent. If they alt-tag their photos, then Google can crawl their website better.

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Donor Survey Method

Goal

The goal of this survey was to get a better understanding of NRCA’s donors’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. A 21-question survey was distributed to slightly more than 100 donors that were listed on a Microsoft Excel sheet provided by NRCA. While only 14 responses were received, these responses help reveal existing donor attitudes and practices.

Audience

Existing NRCA donors

Justification

Identifying NRCA’s donors’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviors will reveal overall donor relationship satisfaction with NRCA. For example, as stated above, 77% of donor participants have donated to NRCA five or more times. It is important to check donor attitudes and beliefs regularly to identify emerging opportunities or problems with this key public for nonprofit organizations.

Sample questions

1. Which, if any, of the following programs would you like to see NRCA promote more within the community?

2. Which of the following NRCA programs does your donation support? (Check all the apply)

3. The next set of questions asks you to indicate whether you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with the statement. (Feel welcome to skip one of the statements if you are unsure or if the question does not apply to you.)

4. Please estimate how many times you have contributed to NRCA.

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Donor Survey Results

• Out of the donor participants, 0% responded that social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) was how they first heard about New River Community Action or its programs.

• 46% of donor participants do not understand the full range of programs that are offered

by NCRA.

• 77% of donor participants have donated to NRCA five or more times.

• Of the donor participants, 38% follow NRCA on Facebook and 0% follow NRCA on other social media platforms.

• Of the donor participants, 45% share NRCA social media messages on Facebook and 0%

share NRCA messages on other social media platform.

• 92% of donor participant are satisfied with the acknowledgement they receive about their donation to NRCA.

• 100% of donor participants believe that social media is important to bringing more

attention to NRCA’s role in the community.

• 80% of donor participants feel knowledgeable about the services offered by NRCA.

• 100% of the donor participants are confident that NRCA uses their donations wisely.

• Of the donor participants, 60% would like to know more about how their donations are being used by NRCA.

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Faith-Based Partners Survey

Goals

The goal of the faith-based partner survey is to analyze the relationship NRCA shares among its faith-based partners, which include churches, synagogues, and temples. It is also important to reach beyond existing partnerships and attempt to engage new faith-based partners since faith-based organizations share much of the same mission in the community. The survey explores many factors, including motivations for partnerships and donations, current and future partnerships, and level of participation. Current partners will be surveyed through a phone interview, which provides a more personal experience. Faith-based organizations that do not have a relationship with NRCA will be surveyed online in a general survey, allowing a large number of groups to be surveyed at one time. The separate methods will better determine what ways New River Community Action can obtain more resources and support from engaged and potential faith-based partners.

Justification

By segmenting our church public into two sub-groups, we hope to gain more information about the churches/outreach groups in general and gain insight about our current partners to better assist them. By reaching out to church groups that do not currently have a relationship with NRCA, we will also have a better idea of the opposite: why other groups are hesitant to help assist NRCA and its mission. Although these groups may not be a current partner of NRCA, this effort will still help increase NRCA’s visibility in the community. By surveying the church and outreach groups NRCA already has a relationship with, we will better understand how to serve and communicate with existing donors, while possibly drawing connections to what programs potential donors may feel a strong connection.. These surveys will give us more information regarding the demographics of donors and resources, as well as bring light to the needs and obstacles currently facing NRCA with the main goal of strengthening current partnerships and gaining more in the process.

Public

This public consists of outreach directors for faith-based organizations in the City of Radford and in Montgomery, Floyd, Giles, and Pulaski counties.

Sample Units of Analysis

The first subject group surveyed were those faith-based organizations that do not currently partner with NRCA. The goal was to explore community outreach behaviors within the targeted counties. The questions asked include status of relationship (existing or not existing currently), knowledge or awareness of NRCA and its programs, and, when appropriate, satisfaction with the existing relationship. Sample questions include:

1. Why does your congregation support or partner with the organizations you support? 2. Can you briefly describe the process that your congregation uses to determine which community

organizations you will support with financial, in-kind service, or volunteer support? 3. How do you provide assistance to NRCA programs? Can you name some specific NRCA

programs you (or your members) support? 4. Do you know how your support helps NRCA accomplish its mission?

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Faith-Based Partner Survey Results

Relationship

Out of the faith-based organizations surveyed, two reported being partners with NRCA since its existence, three reported several years, three reported a decade and one reported 20 years of relationship. All 10 of the organizations surveyed said that they plan to continue their partnership with NRCA. Half of the organizations are happy with what NRCA does and how the organization conducts itself. One organization stated that they are passionate about NRCA’s mission and its importance to their own mission. Another organization knows that their own funds might run out as the organization grows and relies on its partnership with NRCA. Also, several of the faith-based organizations stated that their congregation wants to continue to give back to their local community.

Contributions

All of the faith-based organizations reported some type of monetary contribution to NRCA. Six organizations reported that their organization actively refers people to NRCA who can benefit from their services. Four organizations reported providing spaces for NRCA programs while another four reported providing volunteers for NRCA and another three organizations reported assisting with food donations. Three organizations reported supporting NRCA’s program To Our House, two reported supporting Head Start, and five reported monetary assistance and food pantry donations.

Satisfaction

All of the faith-based organizations reported satisfaction with their partnership with NRCA and giving back to the community through NRCA. Three of the organizations reported that they have members who have directly benefited from NRCA services.

Communication

Eight of the organizations said that they received correspondence from NRCA, many of them receiving thank you notes following their contributions. One organization noted that they would benefit from more correspondence while one noted that they do not wish that there was more correspondence between the organizations. Another organization noted that there is no public correspondence like social media or social media interaction.

NRCA Mission

All but one of the organizations understood the purpose of their organization’s partnership with NRCA to some degree. One organization was unaware of NRCA’s purpose. All of the organizations acknowledged how their monetary contributions assist in operational needs of NRCA while one noted that their contributions helped to “reach an overlooked section of the SVA population.”

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NRCA Volunteers / Staff Survey

Goal

The goal of the survey analysis is to assess the clarity of the NRCA programs offered and to evaluate current volunteer attitudes, beliefs, and practices. The analysis will also take into account the viewpoints of staff and volunteers in order to gain an insider’s perspective of NRCA programs.

Justification

This survey will allow assessment of functionality of services offered by NRCA. Survey results will reveal areas of concern and opportunities to expand services. In analyzing the survey results, measures of communication effectiveness will be analyzed as will opportunities for better communication practices.

Source/Public

1. NRCA Volunteers and Staff

Sample Questions/Units of Analysis

Staff / Volunteers

1. How did you hear about NRCA services? 2. Which program does the community need to know more about? 3. Do you follow NRCA social media? 4. Which types of communication methods would you recommend NRCA use to recruit volunteers? 5. Which sources or groups do you think NRCA should consider to recruit more volunteers? 6. Where do you reside? 7. What is your age group?

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NRCA Staff / Volunteer Survey Results

37 responses, survey sent to 160 staff and volunteers

Participants hear about their services through:

o Staff member or volunteer at NRCA or one of its programs: 32% o Other: 21% o Local news story (newspaper, television, radio): 14% o Friend or associate: 14% o Do not recall: 7% o As a client of one of NRCA’s agencies or programs: 4% o Social Media: 4% o From religious leader or outreach program at your church, synagogue or temple 4%

Survey participants stated that the community needs to know more about the SwiftStart and Homeless and Housing programs.

o 25% of respondents identified opportunities for clarity with SwiftStart and 22% indicated Homeless and Housing programs needed more promotion and message clarity.

61% of volunteers and staff follow NRCA on social media, creating an opportunity for 39% more to also follow the accounts. Expanding volunteer and staff followers will help spread the social network reach of NRCA

To recruit more volunteers, survey participants suggested the following sources of recruitment:

o Local colleges and universities: 24% o Faith-based organizations: 21% o Previous clients: 21% o Retired senior volunteer programs: 18% o Other non-profit organizations: 15% o Other: 2%

1. Social media 2. Local companies that may be allowing their employees to volunteer

The highest percentage of volunteers and staff reside in Montgomery and Giles counties (26%). All participants were over 26 years of age, with no volunteers or staff being represented in the 18 to 25 age group. This suggests a rich opportunity to engage with college age/young adult volunteers.

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Publics Corporate/Community Partners

Non-faith-based organizations who partner with New River Community Action offer valuable insight into the effectiveness, or ineffectiveness, or NRCA's current communication and outreach strategies. The 44 non-faith-based partners whose contact information was provided to PR Campaigns cover a range of business initiatives from private non-profits, cities and towns, county and state administered organizations, and for-profit organizations and coalitions.

An open-ended, qualitative survey was developed and administered to the 44 non-faith-based NRCA partners to better understand non-faith-based partners’ attitudes and involvement with NRCA and to assess their perceptions NRCA’s communication and public relations strategies. The qualitative data aimed to explore NRCA’s outreach efforts with the partner organization and to gauge the partner organizations’ perceptions, where possible, of NRCA’s communication with publics both organizations serve. Conducting this primary research with NRCA partners helped to identify major areas of need within NRCA’s communication tactics and practices. As the non-faith-based partner survey method details, the goal of the qualitative research included 1) assessment and evaluation of dialogue with NRCA, 2) potential areas of communication improvement, and means of communication, specifically social mediated, 3) branding suggestions or ideas, and 4) prioritization of communication strategies.

Eight of the 44 non-faith-based partners (18% response) completed the survey. While the response rate was lower than anticipated, the participants who completed the survey provide rich data. Partners from broad areas of NRCA’s service area completed the survey, so the survey accomplished geographic representation. Although the non-faith-based partners indicated that NRCA’s communication is not substantial beyond word-of-mouth and face-to-face communication, shared values and shared mission are the most important common ground between NRCA and these partners. For example, the following quote from Floyd County Social Services Department represents the attitude expressed by these partners: “No communication from NRCA makes our organization remain committed to the partnership between our organizations; it is the fact that we share the same mission of serving clients in need in Floyd County and both agencies are committed to having a strong partnership.” NRCA is in a position to recruit more corporate and community partners by sharing their mission, organizational values, and ensuring that community organizations are aware of the mutually beneficial goals they share in supporting the community.

Faith-based Partners

Faith-based organizations are those that have some religious affiliation. Faith-based organizations include churches, parishes, ministerial funds, mosques, synagogues, and ministries. New River Community Action partners with more than 100 different faith-based organizations to help accomplish its mission. These faith-based partnerships generate a major portion of NRCA’s volunteers and provide a generous fraction of NRCA’s annual donations and constitute significant portions of their volunteer base. The financial and human support of faith-based

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partners enables NRCA to offer programs it might not otherwise be able to offer and increases capacity to serve additional citizens in some many programs.

Survey and phone interviews with faith-based partners reveal that faith-based organizations are happy with their partnership and support they provide to NRCA. The 10 faith-based partners surveyed indicate that they plan to continue to support NRCA. NRCA’s relationships with many of these organizations are long-standing, as over half (70%) of those surveyed reported being partners with NRCA for more than a decade. In addition, all of those surveyed reported being satisfied with their partnership (100%) and felt as though their work with NRCA benefited their congregation and the goal of giving back to the community (100%).

However, the largest area for improvement in NRCA’s relationships with faith-based organizations is apparent in their correspondence after donations and volunteer hours are completed. One organization (10%) survey noted that they have received no public correspondence or acknowledgement from NRCA in regards to their partnership, while two organizations (20%) said they do not receive active correspondence or details on the results of any of their donations. Findings show that (30%) of faith-based partners would like more communication about the impact of their support for NRCA. The critical nature of this partnerships suggests that in addition to written acknowledgement of gifts, follow-up with faith-based partners is essential to informing organizations about the impact of their support. While most (80%) congregations noted that more communication with organizations they partner with is always appreciated, one of the churches surveyed said they did not desire any more communication with NRCA than currently received.

Research also shows that volunteers are more likely to return and donors are more likely to donate again when their efforts are acknowledged.41 While thank-you notes are typically distributed to partners after contributions, it is important to acknowledge and praise organizations after all forms of partnership and give specific results of their efforts in order to benchmark what organizations and the community is receiving from the partnership.

Volunteers and Staff

The staff and volunteer publics agree on several different internal problems at the NRCA. Both groups believe that the NRCA is not well enough known in the service area and that many people misunderstand the range and content of services they offer. NRCA also wants to target a younger demographic for volunteers, due to the untapped pool of college-aged volunteers that is available in most of the counties.

The staff in NRCA work full time. They are either involved in the main office, located in Radford City or a satellite facility, such as the Head Start office. The staff are involved in a variety of different programs. Volunteers only work when needed. Programs like the Emergency Assistance Program food pantry need volunteers to work more often while a service like the tax program only needs volunteers during a specific time of the year. It is important to NRCA to engage volunteers regularly or risk the potential of losing them to another community

41 https://www.inc.com/laura-garnett/acknowledgment-the-new-charisma-at-work.html

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organization or cause. The number of volunteers has diminished significantly in recent years, so it is important for NRCA to consider ways to reinforce, support, and engage their volunteers regularly so that retention rates increase. Training volunteers requires significant time and energy, so it is important to reinforce this volunteer public to keep them engaged over a long period of time.

Staff and volunteers rely a lot on ‘word of mouth’ to spread information about their programs and services to the community. They realize that this is not the most impactful way, but have not made significant changes their communication. NRCA exhibits low self-efficacy when it comes to increasing community awareness and appears unsure of how to present the many services it offers under one umbrella. Only 61% of volunteers and staff members in the Volunteer/Staff survey follow the organization on social media platforms. Volunteers and staff are important advocate for the organization and its programs and their help in communicating and disseminating organizational messages through social media is an important opportunity. Additionally, all volunteers and staff who completed the Volunteer/Staff survey were over the age of 26, which suggests rich opportunity to engage with the area college-age student publics. Volunteers and Staff, when asked where program clients learn about NRCA services, word of mouth (32%) remains most prominent. Only 4% indicated that clients learn about NRCA services through social media, which suggests a significant growth area for NRCA to promote its programs on social media platforms.

Donors

Donors are the individuals, companies and organizations that give financial support to help NRCA accomplish its mission. The Donor Survey was sent to donor email addresses.

Fourteen donors responded to the survey. While 14 is a relatively low response rate for the almost 100 emails distributed, the results show patterns that are important to consider for a public relations campaign. All donor respondents (100%) believe that social media is an important tool to bring more community awareness about NRCA and its programs and all (100%) were confident that NRCA uses its contributions wisely. The vast majority of donors (92%) indicated that they were satisfied with the acknowledgment they receive about their contribution, but 60% would like more details about how their contribution was used. Although the donors agreed that social media was an important tool for public relations, only 38% indicated that they follow NRCA on Facebook and only 45% indicated that they share NRCA messages on one of its social media platforms. There remains significant opportunity to recruit the donors to help advocate on behalf of NRCA and to have them share NRCA messages with their online networks. There also remains opportunity for donor education as 46% indicated that they do not understand the full range of NRCA programs and 20% felt they lacked knowledge about the services offered by NRCA. Most of the donors (77%) who completed the survey have contributed to the organization five times or more. Ensuring that these long-standing donors are informed, aware of ways their contribution impacts the public, and engaged on social media is important for NRCA as they reach for more donors.

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Social Media

New River Communication Action has 1,825 followers on its Facebook page, but the numbers of the Emergency Assistance Programs are much lower. For example, only 104 followers exist for the NRCA Emergency Assistance Program Facebook page and 110 followers for the specific Radford Emergency Assistance Program. The New River Valley’s total population as more than 180,000 people. The 1,825 followers for NRCA is approximately 1% of the service area population, but the 104 followers for the Emergency Assistance Program is less than one-tenth of 1% (.0006). It is critically important for NRCA and its EAPs to expand the number of followers on social media before launching a social media campaign.

Interaction data for the Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are very low. There are less than 2 comments or likes on average for Tweets and those figures are only slightly better for Facebook. NRCA is not tagging community members, donors, community partners, or their other programs when posting messages, which means that network getting exposure to their message is siloed. To ensure followers and partners see NRCA messages, tagging messages with relevant followers is a must.

In addition to using the affordances of social media (e.g., tagging, liking, sharing, hash-tagging), it is also important to alt-tag or use hashtags when posting messages.

Potential Publics - Floyd, Giles, Montgomery and Pulaski County Residents

(This survey was completed in Spring 2019 when Public Relations Campaigns served Children’s Health Improvement Program, a service of New River Community Action)

A survey was distributed in the four-county service area using Facebook survey URL postings, email, and listserv distribution from county government and community groups. The survey was completed by 383 residents and it covered knowledge questions about poverty and New River Community Action programs, attitudes toward poverty and recipients of social support programs, and engagement behaviors with community and civic organizations.

Public Knowledge

About 90% of survey respondents in each constituency agreed that poverty is a significant problem. So, recognition of the major community social problem facing NRCA is high. About two-thirds (64%) of respondents indicated they would support an NRCA program – especially programs providing support for disadvantaged children. However, when it came to specifics about naming programs within NRCA, only about half of participants were able to identify a program within New River Community Action. There is significant opportunity to increase public awareness and recognition.

Public attitudes toward poverty

There is a significant difference in responses to the statement, “Many people living in poverty have too much pride to accept help.” Between 49% and 57% of respondents in Giles, Montgomery, and Pulaski agreed with this statement. However, there is a different dynamic in Floyd County since 77% of respondents agreed with this sentiment. This suggests that there is a

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different perception of those in poverty among Floyd residents. A stigma toward the impoverished seems to exist in responses to the question, “People end up in poverty because of a poor work ethic.” While there is some variability across the four counties, between 16% (Montgomery) and 36% (Giles) of responses suggest that impoverished residents are in their situation because of their own lack of motivation to change their situation or because of a poor work ethic. It is clear that there is room to educate members of the community about the cycle of poverty and the difficulty to overcome poverty. Poverty carries a stigma for about 20% of residents in the four-county service area for NRCA.

Relationships building opportunities – College Students and Faith-based Organizations

Responses across the four counties suggest that university students and faith-based organizations are best positioned to assist NRCA. About 70% of respondents indicate that faith-based organizations are particularly important to helping overcome poverty and university students offer important volunteer support (57%) for community organizations.

Relationship building opportunities on Facebook seems particularly rich. Almost all (98.9%) respondents indicated that they regularly use Facebook, which far outpaces Instagram (37%), Pinterest (30%), and Twitter (19%). Since Facebook allows relationship building, two-way communication, and control of message, this is a particularly robust platform for NRCA to reach residents of all ages across all counties. However, it is also important to build media relations with traditional print, television, and radio outlets.

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Opportunity Statement

New River Community Action’s Emergency Assistance Program has a gap in its online presence. This gap puts NRCA in a situation where it cannot reach the relevant audiences. The

risk is that a lack of awareness for EAP can lead to apathy from the community, a stigma toward needing emergency assistance, and fewer funding avenues, which are crucial in unprecedented

times such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Campaign Plan

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Goal Statement

The A Step Toward Relief campaign is a public relations campaign for New River Community Action’s Emergency Assistance Program. The A Step Toward Relief campaign will increase outreach to donors, stabilize donations for local food pantries, engage with publics on social media, increase awareness of NRCA, and fight the stigma surrounding poverty and the need for assistance. These goals are achievable through a comprehensive Facebook message plan, the implementation of a social media intern, and a series of informative, emotive, and motivational posts addressing the Emergency Assistance Program and the stigma related to emergency assistance needs.

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Logo and Slogan Justifications

Logo: The person walking up a staircase signifies that the New River Community Action Emergency Assistance Program helps its clients up when they are down. It is a step-by-step process, but NRCA is there to help. The hand drawing the staircase represents the help that NRCA is able to give. Notice that while NRCA is providing the help, it is up to the person to ultimately make their way to the top of the stairs. The hand is a reinterpretation of NRCA’s philosophy of a “hand up, not a handout.” This new interpretation combines the old message with an emphasis on the client rather than the organization. The shades of blue are the same shades of blue that are used in NRCA’s main logo so that there is brand consistency. The Emergency Assistance Program’s name sits atop the logo while the campaign slogan, A Step Toward Relief, is at the bottom, further emphasizing the program’s goal. Slogan: The slogan complements the logo and states the Emergency Assistance Program’s goal in four words making it easy to remember. The slogan answers the question, “What does the Emergency Assistance Program do?” A Step Toward Relief indicates that the program does not provide handouts. Rather, the program gives those in need an opportunity for relief so that they can get their expenses in order again or feed their family without worry. NRCA does not provide relief, but rather it gives people an option. It is up to the client whether they will take that step or not. This slogan will inform the public not only of what the EAP does, but also what it does not do — give handouts.

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Objectives

Objective 1: Increase online donations by 15% by May 2021 through a Facebook message campaign.

The A Step Toward Relief campaign will implement a strategic and multi-faceted Facebook message plan over the next year to increase the amount of online donations, with a particular focus on getting new donors and retaining existing donors. The campaign name will accomplish this objective through regularly scheduled posts to increase awareness and exposure. The Campaign name will also employ ads targeted toward residents of the New River Valley community.

Create a content calendar By making use of Facebook Business Manager, the EAP will be able to schedule, monitor and analyze a Facebook campaign with greater ease. The ability to schedule many posts at once will make it much easier to publish frequent content, allowing for an increase in exposure. Additionally, it gives the ability to track engagement with ease, informing NRCA which messages are working best among the target publics. This data can be analyzed to determine what types of posts will be best to curate in the future, as well as look at what publics are being reached. All of these things will lead to more effective and increased exposure, which will in turn increase the public’s awareness of the EAP and willingness to contribute. Seeing as NRCA currently only has Facebook pages, Facebook business manager will be a good starting point to track social media campaigns. However, as involvement grows, and if we expand to more than one platform, then a more advanced program such as Hootsuite should be set up. Targeted ads Along with increased exposure, a call to action is necessary for an increase in online donors. Ads are an excellent place to do this, especially ones that are targeted toward those who live or work in the New River Valley. These ads are designed to show the community the importance of the work that EA does for their fellow residents as well as emphasize the need for funds. Facebook is able to micro target audiences, based on their likes, location, etc. The use of ads with a call to action will make it easy for people to give monetary donations, by being direct and allowing people to simply “click here to donate.” Additionally, Facebook allows for the business to set exactly how much they want to pay for their ads. Facebook will never charge more than our set budget for an ad campaign. We will choose a max amount we are willing to pay for a given amount of time that we want to run the ad. We can set both daily and lifetime budgets for our ads. Sometimes your ad will end up costing less than the allotted budget but will never cost more. Facebook business manager can be used for this as well, giving the ability to create separate ad accounts where the EAP would be able to pay and publish ads with ease.

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Objective 2: Implement a “Step Up” campaign by Spring 2021 to increase awareness for NRCA in the New River Valley Community

Social media content calendar

Currently, the NRCA Facebook page only has 71 followers and 65 likes, yet NRCA served around 9,000 people in the NRV in 2019. An awareness campaign will bolster NRCA’s online following and attract donors. We believe it will be most effective for NRCA to enact a “slow burn” social media campaign on Facebook. This campaign is stretched from January 2021 to May 2021, so not to bombard community members with too much information; too much information at once will impact its retention. This campaign will focus on strategically publishing posts and releasing Facebook ads on certain days, spaced apart adequately so the audiences will actually retain the information we’re trying to share. The theme of the posts will revolve around Emergency Assistance Program awareness. There will be specific posts with video testimony from community members positively impacted by the Emergency Assistance Program, positive notes from donors and volunteers, and messaging from NRCA about fighting the stigma against the Emergency Assistance Program. We will make good use of a set of hashtags to raise awareness on social media that community members can respond to: #emergencyassistance, #NRCA, #handup, #fightthestigma, and #NRV.

After analyzing this Facebook campaign’s results, it would be advantageous to open a Twitter account for NRCA if the results are positive. Since NRCA’s Facebook following is so small (and it only receives around 3-10 likes per post), an objective to reach our goal is to double the online following in two months. To do this, we will publish impactful posts about the Emergency Assistance Program with strong call-to-actions. There will be good photographs and videos instead of just flyers with information. Other objectives will include connecting with other nonprofits online and potential donors and holding a Facebook live Q&A session for community members. We will track these engagements on Facebook business managers.

Distribute informative print materials to potential publics and donors

The print materials distributed by NRCA regarding the Emergency Assistance Program primarily focus on the needs that the program can assist with, meaning that the target audience for these materials are those in need. While that information is useful for them, there’s an opportunity for print materials that can be distributed to the general public and potential partners like collegiate philanthropic organizations, churches, and youth organizations like 4-H. Spreading information about the Emergency Assistance Program will be helpful in educating the public and fighting the stigma. The most obvious way to distribute information would be an easy to read yet informative brochure.

This brochure and poster will be available and distributed at events in the New River Valley that gather large crowds like FloydFest, Steppin’ Out, the Radford Highlanders Festival, Blacksburg Fork and Cork, street fairs, farmers markets, and so on. It will also be available year-round at unemployment offices, clinics, and medical offices. Promoting the Emergency Assistance Program through these platforms will increase its visibility to the audience and draw in new donors.

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About 90% of monetary donations made to NRCA are physical rather than digital. Cash or checks can be sent through mail by printing a form online, but this process can be streamlined to make sending donations easier through the brochure. The last panel on the brochure will be a form that can be easily separated from the rest of the brochure, filled out, and fit into an envelope along with cash or a check. This brochure with the donation form attached will be distributed for years to come, will be updated as needed, and will become an integral part of NRCA’s donation efforts.

To coincide with the content calendar and social media campaign, posters with client testimonies and infographics on the Emergency Assistance Program, food pantries, and the Floyd Backpack Program will be distributed so that they can be displayed in public places like local restaurant and shop windows. Features of the posters will include a QR code that will lead to a donation link, the NRCA web address, hashtags to partner with the social media efforts, and a call to donate. All of these tactics will increase community awareness and create more avenues for donations as well as serve the overall theme of fighting the stigma.

Objective 3: Implement a social media internship for the Spring 2021 semester that recruits at least one VT public relations major

New River Community Action will implement a semester-long unpaid social media internship program designed to recruit Virginia Tech public relations students for the Spring of 2021. The program will offer class credit and be designed for one motivated student with knowledge of public relations, media relations, crisis management, and communication. The goal of this internship will be to relieve some of the stress from the Emergency Assistance Program employees by designating specific responsibilities for the intern to handle. Such responsibilities would include managing social media accounts, scheduling posts via Facebook, collecting data and analyzing trends to create monthly reports on the status of the EAP’s social media using Facebook Analytics, and assisting with any other miscellaneous tasks if needed. Create relevant content

The social media intern will be in charge of following the A Step Toward Relief content calendar to post relevant content on the Emergency Assistance Program’s social media pages. Some content examples would include a post about each of the sections of the Emergency Assistance Program and what it does; a testimonial from a donor on why they donated, what their money was able to accomplish, and what the program means to them; and information and status updates from EAP employees. Schedule and manage content using Hootsuite

Sticking to a consistent content schedule is key to any organization’s social media presence. With the underdog status of NRCA, it is especially important to keep a clean, consistent post schedule that keeps the brand image in mind. The social media intern will also be responsible for scheduling posts via Facebook while following a predetermined content calendar. In addition to its scheduling feature, Facebook offers an all-in-one dashboard feature that allows the user to manage all of their social media pages at once as well as quickly respond to messages, brand

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mentions, and comments, so the intern will be able to keep up with any page that needs attention while engaging with the audience. If later on NRCA chooses to obtain a Hootsuite subscription, these tasks can be done via Hootsuite as well. Class credit

The internship will be unpaid as an attempt to stay within the already-tight budget of the Emergency Assistance Program. In exchange for their work, the student intern will be given the option to receive class credit for the time spent at the internship. This will need to be worked out and finalized ahead of time with the student’s academic advisor and the internship supervisor, Dr. John Tedesco, which will include coming up with a list of objectives for the student to complete in order to ensure the internship will be a worthwhile academic endeavor. The internship will be specifically aimed at public relations students due to the skills needed for the workload and will ideally recruit junior and senior students with a more comprehensive knowledge of the public relations discipline due to their upperclassman status.

Collecting data and analyzing trends via Facebook Analytics and creating monthly reports

Another responsibility of the intern will be to collect data and analyze any trends related to the Emergency Assistance Program’s social media. Facebook offers its own analytics tools, including a funnel feature to visualize viewers’ progress to conversion through their actions across a page, a feature that measures viewer retention, segments and demographics tools, automated insights, custom dashboards to more efficiently view data, and a plethora of audience tracking tools. If later on NRCA chooses to obtain a Hootsuite subscription, the following features are available on Hootsuite: analytics feature which allows the user to determine which posts are performing as intended among the audience and which posts have room for improvement. The analytics tools also allow the user to see useful information on general engagements as well as post statistics. Hootsuite also offers a custom report feature that can be used to measure the impact of social media content using metrics, easy sharing to export results to bosses and coworkers, and more. The use of these data collection tools will be utilized by the intern to create monthly status and progress reports to share with the rest of the team as well as to tailor future posts for maximum relevance and engagement. Though this internship is primarily a social media one, it will also be expected of the intern to assist the rest of the team with any other miscellaneous tasks if needed. Such tasks could include reaching out to a specific donor or community organization, running errands, or helping out with fundraising.

Objective 4: Create a partnership with philanthropic organizations to generate more funding avenues by May 2021

New River Community Action will create a partnership with philanthropic organizations from Virginia Tech to generate more funding avenues by May 2021.

Reaching out to philanthropic organizations

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To connect with the philanthropic organizations, the intern must research to see if the organizations have existing causes or philanthropies set for each year. Service fraternities would be the optimal choice because they specifically focus on serving the community. Additionally, these fraternities may be more willing to partner. Next, the intern will send out a letter of invitation to an interest meeting. At the interest meeting, there will be a PowerPoint presentation, a sign-up sheet, a fact sheet, a business card, and stickers. Later, the intern will send out emails regarding the New River Community Action to the interested philanthropic organizations detailing the outcome of the partnership. With this partnership, the New River Community Action will be able to create drives for food and personal items. Type of campaign for the organization

The type of campaign with the partnering organizations must be established to stay on track. The funding avenues can take two tracks on whether the money will be raised through funds or donations. Create a “pledge” for the partnering organizations

A “pledge” outlining the details of the partnering organizations’ roles helps to stay focused and establish the expectations of each partner. In the contract, listing out how much time the partnering organizations will put toward the partnership is of importance. Additionally, if these hours spent toward working with New River Community Action will count toward the partnering organizations’ community service hours. Booth on campus Virginia Tech has a big event called Gobblerfest where different clubs and organizations all form together on a specific day to recruit and advertise. Using this event to showcase the partnership with the New River Community Action and the partnering organizations using a booth is one way to garner attention and possible donations. At the booth will be a New River Community Action Emergency Assistance Program fact sheet, signup sheet and stickers.

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A Step Toward Relief Budget

Objective 1

Facebook Manager $0

Facebook Ads $140

Objective 2

Content calendar $0

Posters (10) $99.90

Brochures (200) $120.00

Objective 3

Intern $0

Facebook Manager $0

Objective 4

Fact Sheet (FAQ) (100) $57.00

Business Cards (500) $14.99

Presentation $0

Stickers (1000) $66.34

Sign-up Sheets (100) $57.00

Total: A Step Toward Relief Campaign $555.23

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Campaign Calendar

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Implementation Materials

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Implementation Tactic: Social Media Content Calendar

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Implementation Tactic Additional Information: Facebook Manager

What Facebook Business Manager does: i. Allows companies to manage multiple pages, including separate ad pages, all in one convenient location. ii. Ad pages can be separately managed, and payment can be done directly through Facebook Business Manager. Additionally, ad performance can be tracked. iii. Facebook business managers can also be used to collect data on both your page posts, as well as ads. The program can track views, audience, even how many people click on a donate button.

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Implementation Tactic: Informational Brochure

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Implementation Tactic: Testimonial Posters with and without donate button

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Implementation Tactic: Facebook story Venmo challenge

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Implementation Tactic: PowerPoint Presentation

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Implementation Tactic: NRCA Sign-up Sheet

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Implementation Tactic: FAQ Sheet

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Implementation Tactic: Business Cards

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Implementation Tactic: Sticker Template

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Evaluation Plan

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Objective 1: Evaluating the success of a Facebook campaign to increase the amount of online donations is relatively straight forward. First, with the use of Facebook business manager, organizations are be able to track engagement on posts and analyze what publics they are reaching with each unique post or a range of posts. Additionally, creating a Facebook campaign and using Facebook Business Manager would allow us to track the performance of ads. Second, the campaign would evaluate denotations between the campaign launch and its completion (May 2021). Tracking engagements enable assessment of online donors, donations amounts and totals, and identifies whether the Facebook donation button is generating the engagement anticipated.

Objective 2: The success of the posters and brochures will be measured by tracking website traffic after the materials have been distributed. An increase in website traffic means that the links and QR codes are being used by the public to get more information on the Emergency Assistance Program. NRCA will be able to evaluate the effectiveness of the brochure donation forms by how many are sent in by mail compared to the downloadable donation forms. Increased engagement on Facebook will determine the success of the content calendar. If more people are liking and sharing the #fightthestigma posts and using the hashtags, then that means the information is being spread beyond the immediate audience that NRCA already has. Since NRCA’s Facebook only has 71 followers, there is immense opportunity to double and even triple follower count.

Objective 3: The success of the social media internship program will be measured by the successful completion of the above listed internship responsibilities in relation to the goal of increased engagement and followers. By using relevant content and a consistent content posting schedule as well as the collected data and analytics information to tailor posts for maximum engagement, messaging in the A Step Toward Relief campaign is expected to double or triple overall audience engagement with the Emergency Assistance Program social media as well as their followers over the course of the five-month internship (January-May 2021). Increased audience engagement will be evaluated by using Facebook Analytics’ engagement tracking tools. By using these tools, the user will be able to see how much of an effect the relevant posts and consistent schedule had on the overall social media engagements since the beginning of the internship program. If the growth reflects a doubling or tripling in post engagement and followers, the Emergency Assistance Program will be able to confirm that a social media internship program or a full-time social media position is worth implementing again in the future. Objective 4: The success of the partnership with philanthropic organizations will be measured based on the quality of the campaign and funding raised with the partnerships created. With the importance placed on the number of partnered organizations, the pledge established and the creation of a booth. Partnering with philanthropic organizations provide additional funding avenues to New River Community Action. Philanthropic, service-oriented clubs and organizations exist at Radford University and Virginia Tech, in particular, but also exist in the community (e.g., Community Foundation of the New River Valley). As reported in the 2018-2019 Annual Report, philanthropic partnerships like those with The Campus Kitchen at Virginia Tech and generous sororities and fraternities are able to host fundraisers and donation drives, which generate the significant type of support NRCA and its Emergency Assistance Program need.