Overview

Avenue Scholars Foundation is a 10-year-old mentoring, internship and career-placement nonprofit primarily serving Omaha Metropolitan Area school districts. While Avenue Scholars has evolved immensely since its founding, it generally flies under the public’s radar. So they tasked us launching a new program – the first replication of Avenue Scholars outside of its original Omaha footprint – while simultaneously raising public awareness of the work the organization is doing in the community.

Execution

Beginning with a full internal and external audit and discovery process, Bozell led the brand development for Career EdVantage – an extension of Avenue Scholars into Southwest Iowa – including naming, logo development and key messaging. Then we established a PR strategy that would evolve the public discussion about mentorship and internship programs. Messaging focused on workforce development – aka giving job-ready students the opportunity to fill an immediate need for good-paying jobs – while empowering the students to choose their own paths.

Armed with a brand and a strategy, the PR plan was built for the launch. Efforts were made to steadily raise awareness of Avenue Scholars and their mission with news media and stakeholders leading up to the news event. Media sources were invited to Avenue Scholars events. Messaging was tested in the market. The new executive director worked to build relationships with key stakeholders. And we earned placement about trade career opportunities to elevate the position of Avenue Scholars as an expert.

Once the groundwork was laid, Bozell worked with Career EdVantage staff to hold a news event that served as the official launch of the foundation in Southwest Iowa.

Results

By building momentum to maximize the impact of a simple event, we were able to garner 72 earned media placements about the Avenue Scholars program and Career EdVantage from June through September. These placements generated 2.7 million impressions. In addition to local placements, we generated some regional and national placements with our efforts.