Portfolio
A sample of municipal community engagement projects.
Projects & Campaigns
I approach my work in municipal community engagement from a strategic, problem-solving perspective. Working collaboratively with diverse stakeholders, I think holistically about an organization’s needs, then use my experience with a wide range of communications tactics to address pain points, solve problems and improve the quality of life in the communities I serve.
Police recruitment Campaign
Police departments across the country are facing huge shortages of qualified police officers, especially officers from diverse backgrounds, at a moment when the public is demanding more diversity in the ranks of public safety officers.
Here’s how I used a research-based approach and private sector tactics like digital sales funnels to increase our applicants by 50%.
‘Fox and Muskie’ manhole covers
As a part of the downtown redevelopment initiative, Village leadership wanted public art installations, but the Village had no public art process in place, and more importantly, no funding earmarked for public art.
Here’s how I worked with our Public Works Department to identify an inexpensive art installation opportunity and build community support for the arts.
Website redesign & text notifications
When I started in Oswego, three things kept me up at night: The fact that only one person in the organization was capable of updating the website, security amid an increase in government ransomware attacks, and our inability to text our residents in an emergency.
Here’s how I managed the redevelopment of the website, turning a challenging procurement into a solution that will continue to grow with the community.
Plus, a walkthrough of the site’s design choices and other features.
Tactics
In addition to big-picture problem-solving, I’ve also been responsible for producing all of the newsletters, press releases, brochures, social media, and other communications you expect from your community, and I’ve produced a few events, too.
Newsletters and Annual Reports
The Evanston Public Library’s Annual Report is mailed to 40,000 residences in Evanston, and an additional 1,000 Spanish-language copies are distributed through community networks. I collaborated with our public service departments to write and edit all the content and coordinate all photography, then design in house. In my first year, I refocused the Annual Report to also serve as an important development piece that not only satisfies local government transparency requirements and improves public sentiment for the library, but also brings in several thousands of dollars annually in donations.
The Oswego News is mailed to 17,000 homes and businesses in the village quarterly. I collaborate with the department heads to build story ideas, write and design all of the content (except the mayor’s letter and the Property of the Season feature), source or personally take all the photos, and coordinate with advertisers, the printer, and the post office to ensure timely delivery. Created in InDesign.
Better, Together, the Popular Annual Financial Report for the Village of Oswego is designed to both satisfy annual financial reporting requirements and serve as a marketing piece for economic development initiatives in the village.
Click on the covers of recent editions below to access full PDFs:
Explainers
One of my favorite things to do is give residents tools to understand how their local government works:
The Oswego Village Board established a TIF District in its downtown core and was struggling to explain how tax increment financing works and its impacts on other taxing bodies. I created a poster-sized TIF exhibit and handout explaining the math.
One of the most common problems we faced in Oswego when I started was unincorporated residents who were angry that they didn’t get Village services because they did not know that they didn’t live in the Village. Our staff uses this Oswego Township or Village of Oswego? document regularly to explain the situation to new unincorporated residents.
Events
I approach special events as part of a well-rounded communications plan to give residents another way of experiencing and connecting with their community. Prior to hiring an events coordinator, I ran multiple events for the Village of Oswego, and my team realigned our special events program, which was running at a massive annual deficit, to produce a surplus that could fund other community amenities.
But the coolest event I ever produced was a Guinness World Record attempt for the Most People Headbanging Simultaneously. You can read more about it here.
But you should probably just watch the video on ABC7.