At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the NYC Deputy Mayor for Strategic Initiatives launched Employee Ownership NYC, the nation’s largest municipal initiative to protect and sustain small businesses through conversion to employee ownership. To help business owners keep their doors open by selling their businesses to their employees, the City of New York set up a rapid-response program called Owner to Owners as part of the initiative. 

SVM was hired to develop and manage the multi-phase strategic communications campaign to educate businesses about the financial and social benefits of employee ownership and drive New York City businesses to the Owner to Owners rapid response hotline to find out if employee ownership conversion was right for them.

What
we did

• Produced a comprehensive community partner analysis, consisting of a robust literature review, insights from interviews with 10+ key partners and a stakeholder map of 337 relevant organizational partners across over 20 business ecosystems.
• Designed a multi-phase strategic communications campaign that aimed to reach and engage New York City businesses by leveraging existing networks and trusted community voices as messengers. This decentralized approach aimed to:
  • Educate and equip community partners within distinct business communities to act as Employee Ownership NYC ambassadors.
  • Drive referrals to the Owner to Owners hotline.
  • Support narrative change around the business case for employee ownership. 
  • Establish sustainable referral processes that continue to exist beyond the scope of this campaign.
• Implemented a communications campaign grounded in two outreach tactics: 
  • A community-driven campaign to educate and equip CBO partners to act as the face of the Owner to Owners campaign through customized micro-campaigns and events.
  • A paid media strategy to further amplify the reach of Owner to Owners messaging through online and offline platforms, including social media, Google, radio spots, digital publications and flyering. 
• Customized and A/B tested story-based and data-driven ads, delivered to different business communities, to identify the most effective messaging with each target segment.

As part of the emergency response to COVID-19, the State of California Department of Social Services (CDSS) was tasked with reaching vulnerable communities with information to protect their health and to get vaccinated. For this campaign, CDSS sought to engage community-based organizations across the state to act as trusted messengers and deliver this information to the highest risk communities.SVM was contracted to provide onboarding and technical training for more than 119 CBO partners, in addition to building and maintaining the infrastructure for both CBO reporting and campaign collateral.

What
we did

• Facilitated collaboration among 119 CBO partners to increase reach in geographic and demographic communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19
• Led a multi-day technical onboarding for CBOs and partners participating in campaign
• Trained CBOs and partners on the campaign’s custom digital platform (CORD), which housed weekly outreach reporting, custom outreach materials, reported activity data and trends, and campaign resources
• Provided ongoing technical support for CBO partners, including weekly office hour sessions, a ticketing system, and 1:1 sessions to improve tech literacy 
• Developed and maintained a custom digital solution for searching, filtering, and easily downloading hundreds of campaign assets across 32 languages
• Coordinated across multiple state agencies, funding agents, media partners, and related campaigns to maintain consistent messaging and seamless execution
• Established campaign-wide reporting processes and facilitated the evaluation of data in real-time on an ongoing basis throughout the campaign

As part of the emergency response to COVID-19, The Labor and Workforce Development Agency (LWDA) was tasked with slowing the spread of COVID-19 in high-risk industries across California. LWDA launched a campaign to educate both workers and employers on California health and safety protocols and workers’ rights related to paid sick leave. This campaign sought to engage community-based organizations across the state to act as trusted messengers and deliver this information directly to their communities.SVM’s role was to develop the technical and strategic infrastructure to mobilize a vast network of community-based organizations and reach California’s most impacted workers and employers with local, trusted voices.

What
we did

• Mobilized 62 contracted CBOs to conduct outreach to workers and employers in higher-risk industries across 6 regions of CA and in 30+ languages
• Supported the development, planning, and training for the CORD platform, which imported real-time COVID, demographic, and employee data from across the state to inform regional targeting strategies and facilitate CBO reporting and evaluation. This platform is now being leveraged by multiple CA state agencies to support community outreach planning and campaign execution.
• Provided overall administrative campaign management, oversaw execution, and acted as conduit between multiple state departments, media agencies, and the CBO network
• Devised a ‘Regional Lead’ structure for the campaign (empowering 12 organizations to manage 9 regional coalitions of CBO partners across the state) and met weekly to analyze regional gaps and strategize on data-informed, hyperlocal outreach tactics
• Developed a collaborative structure to gather local CBO insights and inform the earned and paid media strategies
• Collected and analyzed real-time data to inform individual CBO campaign strategy at the neighborhood level and track trends in outreach tactics and community sentiment
• Provided ongoing marketing support and training to increase CBO capacity and long term skill sets, optimize campaign performance, and reduce day-to-day resource burden

The Mayor’s Fund sought to recruit NYC employers to host interns as part of their ‘Ladders for Leaders’ program, a collaboration with the NYC Department of Youth and Community Development. 

Since 2014, the program had grown from 89 participating employers to 475 in 2016. However, the majority of employers engaging in the program were the result of direct outreach from the Mayor’s Fund. 

In 2017, SVM was hired to launch a digital outreach campaign with the goal to recruit 140 new businesses to sign up through the Center for Youth Employment’s (CYE) registration page. 

What
we did

• SVM worked hand-in-hand with CYE’s network of city agency and community partners to coordinate an outreach campaign targeting 7 NYC industries.
• Numerous employer stories were captured, each resonating with a specific industry.
• Additionally, SVM managed a PR outreach strategy, securing coverage by the Wall Street Journal, Politico, Real Estate Weekly, Metro, and the Daily News to name a few.
• SVM re-designed the CYE website and registration page, enhancing the user experience.
• SVM launched a 3-month digitally-led outreach campaign — leveraging both organic and paid social –through the outreach channels of CYE’s partners.

The Mayor’s Office of Domestic Violence (OCDV) designed a campaign to highlight the complexities of domestic violence and be more representative of all relationships that are impacted.

The goal of the campaign was to increase the number of people getting help from local support centers, the support hotline, and a newly launched online portal that housed connections to support. Due to the sensitivity of this issue, OCDV saw an opportunity to work with community-based organizations to more effectively reach specific communities with the message.

They wanted to introduce both a digital and grassroots component to the campaign since it was initially launched with mostly traditional media (i.e billboards, subway ads, taxi TV) and did not deeply integrate local groups.

In 2018, SVM was hired to launch a partner-led digital outreach campaign to connect survivors of domestic violence with support offered by NYC.

What
we did

• SVM collaborated with OCDV’s network of city agency and community-based partners to coordinate an outreach campaign targeting 7 verticals.
• SVM managed a concentrated 3-week campaign with each partner that utilized their existing distribution channels as well as paid social.
• SVM worked with 16 different organizations to design social posts and emails that would uniquely resonate with each community.
• Also, SVM managed OCDV’s social channels for an organic 6- week campaign.

In 2019, the NYC Workforce Development Corporation (WDC) sought support for a year-long communications strategy on behalf of their three Mayoral Industry Partnerships (IPs): Tech Talent Pipeline (TTP), Manufacturing and Industrial Innovation Council (MaiiC), and New York Alliance for Careers in Healthcare (NYACH).

WDC hired SVM to engage industry-specific communities in the launch, engagement, and/or strategic development of individual campaigns with the goal of supporting local employers and job seekers.

What
we did

• Since each IP offers a broad number of programs and services, we started by prioritizing which scaled programs could drive the most significant impact. We then built strategies around those prioritized programs/initiatives and leveraged their partners, PR and paid media to drive employer engagement.
• For MaiiC, SVM built a website, hosted focus groups, supported the launch of the advisory board, and developed the communications strategy for their Covid-19 response.
• For TTP, SVM led the strategic planning process that resulted in a clarification of overall messaging, a new website, and multiple campaigns with industry partners driving towards key outcomes.
• SVM also led NYACH’s strategic planning process and communications plan including the designing of industry briefs, leading of focus groups, and redesigning of the website.

In 2016, The NYC Economic Development Corporation launched ‘Best for NYC’, a social program focused on promoting responsible business practices among small business owners. The campaign sought to engage NYC employers in a 45-minute online assessment, which qualified the businesses for the ‘ Best for NYC’ challenge.

Prior to SVM being engaged, the program had driven 500 employers to the challenge over the course of 12-months. Shared Value Media was hired with the goal to double that number in six weeks.

What
we did

• SVM created partnership agreements with both new and existing EDC partners to target receptive communities: sustainable food community, social impact community, South Bronx, etc.
• Customized creative was developed in the voice of each partner, communicating the value of the program to their communities.
• Local incentives were developed in partnership with these community-based organizations to make the call-to-action more compelling at a local level.
• An organic and paid social campaign was launched through the outreach channels of this network of partners.

Best for NYC, an initiative of the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development, was headed into its third year and looking to reimagine their program in order to drive businesses to make measurable, specific job quality improvements.

In 2018, SVM was hired to develop and manage the strategic communications to drive businesses to sign up for programs that would help them increase job quality for NYC workers.

In addition, SVM was tasked with coordinating the network of city and community based partners and integrating them into the initiative.

What
we did

• Created partnerships with city agencies and community based orgs offering programs around the four focus business improvement areas: financial empowerment, volunteering, training, and open hiring.
• Built a referral page that aggregated local services that help businesses improve job quality. This made it easy for businesses to indicate interest in multiple programs and be instantly introduced via email.
• Created custom content for partners to share with their communities that allowed them to:
  • Celebrated business that already completed a program and could be recognized by Best for NYC.
  • Invited businesses in their network to take advantage of the wide range of support programs through Best for NYC.
• Developed an email strategy for driving the existing Best for NYC community of 1500 businesses to support programs by making the business case for each improvement.