Making History Through Advocacy
Client: Empower Erie
The Challenge
It’s been more than a quarter-century since a new community college was established in Pennsylvania. So the supporters of a new Erie County Community College knew that an all-out advocacy and media relations effort would be necessary to gain public support and approval from the politically divided state Board of Education.
Our Approach
Turn Two helped build a grassroots campaign and robust local and statewide earned and paid strategy that focused on:
Media Relations: With a focus on building relationships with national journalists and elevating the voices of community foundation leaders through op-eds and interviews.
Aggressive advocacy: Public events, building a robust newsletter list, social media and creating a Change.org petition and engaging all sectors of the community
Optimizing op-eds: Strategically placed op-eds from high visibility community leaders as well as those who would directly benefit from the community college proved to be key tools to swaying public opinion
Results
As a result of our ongoing work, in July 2020, the State Board of Education approved Pennsylvania’s 27the community college by a decisive vote. Turn Two is now providing communication support to assure that the college opens in 2021 to a strong cohort of first-year students.
Erie County community college plan gains another backer
Erie County government officials and other backers of its proposed community college won a decisive victory earlier this month when the Pennsylvania Board of Education voted 9-6 in favor of its application.