Is your town in the media ‘crosshairs’? Two more tips on taking your story back (Part 2)

By Pam Bailey, NeighborWorks America blogger

The alarm Ludy Biddle from NeighborWorks Western Vermont felt when she awoke one morning to see her town labeled the epicenter of a “heroin epidemic” in The New York Times was not unusual. Many other community developers have faced the challenge of re-branding a neighborhood even while the media highlight the community’s flaws. In Part 1 of this two-part post, Biddle and others recommended anticipating the challenge by agreeing on a collective narrative and refusing to repeat the negative. Read on for two more “tips from the trenches.”

Re-claim your narrative with positive stories

Instead of countering negative portrayals in the media, Biddle and other “crisis veterans” recommend focusing on your assets. That’s exactly what Pablo Korona did for the city of Rockford, IL. In 2011, both Forbes magazine and The Wall Street Journal listed it as one of America’s 10 most dangerous cities; even “The Daily Show” chimed in, calling it an “urban wasteland.”

Around the time that the negative publicity was peaking, the Rockford native was working for an advertising agency where he was doing promotions for various city institutions. Korona felt the work he was doing for the company wasn't fully living up to the town’s slogan (“Real. Original.”) Instead, he struck out on his own, raising nearly $9,000 through the crowdfunding site Kickstarter to launch a website called Our City, Our Story. Its mission: “We tell the stories that if you live in Rockford, it makes you glad that you do. The stories that if you’re from Rockford, they make you proud to be. The stories that if you’ve never been to Rockford, they make you want to come here.”

Today, the site features a series of 19 video “episodes,” such as one that introduces the people who work at Forest City Gear, a local company that manufactured parts for the motorized vehicle used by NASA to explore the surface of Mars. The video has proven so popular that it alone has attracted more than 500,000 views. More are in the works.

“Sure, Rockford has problems, but we are so much more,” says Korona. “I wanted to share those stories – not with slick slogans, but in real voices. Authenticity trumps ‘polish’ every time.”

Of course, Korona also happens to be the kind of skillful video producer who can shoot in a “covert” style, in which it’s as if the camera isn’t even there. With the help of Korona’s equally savvy use of Facebook and Twitter, the website has generated rave reviews from The Washington Post and Fast Company, along with independent funding to keep it going. However, what is most exciting to Korona is the organic growth of “Our City. Our Story” beyond the website. For example, the local housing authority has hired Korona to teach residents themselves the art of authentic storytelling through moving pictures.

“I keep getting calls from people saying ‘you have to do a story about this and you have to do a story about that,’” Korona says. The intensive training program will teach residents how to tell those stories themselves. (If you want to learn more about the lessons Korona’s project offers for your town, register for the Louisville NeighborWorks Training Institute, where he will be a featured speaker at the May 21 symposium, “Telling a Purposeful and Powerful Story: Communicating for Maximum Impact.”)

Our City, Our Story is not designed to get media attention, although it certainly has. But if that is what you’re after, consultant Andy Goodman says to remember that “it’s not enough to have a good story.” In addition having a genuine news angle, the coverage that attracts an in-depth treatment and a large volume of “shares” taps into a broader theme.

“Certain stories really take hold in the public consciousness because they piggyback on a larger narrative,” explains the founder of The Goodman Center, whose mission is to help good causes reach more people with more impact. “If you want to replace one story with another, you must shift the frame of reference, from one resonant narrative to another.”

So, for example, the broader narrative behind the media coverage of Rockford and Rutland is that towns with high unemployment, foreclosures and related problems are like mini failed states. The job of Biddle and Kobana is to usurp that underlying theme with stories that demonstrate the amazing resilience that keeps those towns – and the vaunted American “spirit” -- alive.

Don’t get distracted! 

Two girls from the Northwest neighborhood of Rutland
contribute their "community gift" by offering their
ideas for the town via a questionnaire and agreeing
to volunteer.

Negative publicity is often unfair and incomplete, and very frustrating for staff members who are toiling in the trenches. However, Biddle and her team are not allowing the continuing fallout to distract them from their work in the neighborhood to create a better future. Whereas others on a “Project VISION” team created by the city to focus on the neighborhood are working on safety, health and employment, NeighborWorks of Western Vermont’s role is to encourage and re-enable homeownership in the troubled Northwest neighborhood.

The organization had sent eight members of the Project VISION team to the NeighborWorks America Community Leadership Institute in Sacramento last October, and this month, the “seed money” received by the participants was put to work: Thirty-five community volunteers spread out over the neighborhood to map its historical, personal, professional and physical assets, such as its Victorian-style architecture. Later, when the mapping project is done, the volunteers will continue on as a community association to plan activities to preserve, expand and celebrate those strengths.

Meanwhile, to reverse the blight and increasing density in the neighborhood, NeighborWorks of Western Vermont is submitting a request to the state for a community development block grant to take over 10 of the houses in the Northwest neighborhood; some will be demolished and rebuilt and others will be rehabilitated. To build excitement, the organization has partnered with the local Green Mountain Power company to transform one of the homes into a model of energy efficiency. In the planning stages is an announcement ceremony at the model house with Sen. Bernie Sanders.

“The home is owned by a local teacher and her husband – the type of people everyone would like to have as neighbors, and totally opposite to the portrait painted by The New York Times,” says Biddle. “We think it will serve as an example others will want to emulate. Check back with us over the next four years; this neighborhood is just beginning to re-discover its strengths!”

Is your town in the media ‘crosshairs’? Four ‘tips from the trenches’ for re-claiming your story

By Pam Bailey, NeighborWorks America blogger

It’s every community developer’s PR nightmare. You’ve targeted a neighborhood for improvement and are making headway, when suddenly you wake up one morning to see the community described on the front page of The New York Times as “fighting a heroin epidemic so entrenched that it has confounded all efforts to combat it.”

That’s exactly what happened on Feb. 28 to Ludy Biddle, executive director of NeighborWorks of Western Vermont, and her team. The Northwest neighborhood of Rutland, a rural town of 16,000, had long been plagued by a high concentration of unemployment and poverty, and the resulting blight. Many of the community’s once-beautiful Victorian homes had been acquired by absentee owners and carved into dense, virtually single-resident-occupancy apartments. Among the negative consequences of the town’s challenges was drug abuse, fed by typically out-of-state dealers. The problem had become so serious that it was a major theme of Gov. Peter Shumlin’s “State of the State” address.

However, Biddle’s organization and others have been working hard to reverse those trends; in fact, when it surveyed more than 200 randomly selected residents in the neighborhood door to door last summer, it found that 58 percent were somewhat to very satisfied to be living there, and 85 percent were willing to invest time as volunteers to improve the neighborhood and its image.

Rutland volunteers Jenifer Dufresne and Sheila Nicholes
canvas the Northwest neighborhood for the
community survey.

“If we had not participated in NeighborWorks’ Community Impact Measurement project by conducting the survey, we would not have had any data to show that the neighborhood has strengths as well,” says Biddle, adding that the research, which uses tools designed by the Success Measures initiative at NeighborWorks America, will be repeated in three years to track progress in the neighborhood over time. “Our experience has really proven the value of taking the time to assess community-level attitudes. The timing turned out to be ideal.”

But how do you capitalize on the good work you’re doing when the media are telling a different story? The New York Times article was widely shared on Facebook, with the mayor’s son even hearing about it while skiing in Colorado. Soon, reporters from media ranging from Fox News, to Rolling Stone, to Al Jazeera were calling. In addition, state-level officials are further highlighting the issues faced by the city; on March 17, Sen. Patrick Leahy held an unusual “field hearing” in Rutland focused on “Breaking the Cycle of Heroin and Opioid Addiction.”

Biddle and her colleagues are not alone. Many other organizations working in distressed neighborhoods have faced similar challenges. Here are some “lessons learned” from Biddle and her Rutland colleagues, as well as other community-development professionals who have survived to thrive after PR crises:

Shape your story in advance – with collective buy-in

 “The first instinct of people who are doing good work, such as the police department, is to talk about it. It’s human nature,” says Marcia Nedland from Fall Creek Consultants, who was retained in 2013 as part of a team charged with advising the city’s re-development agency on strategies for revitalization. “But it’s important to distinguish between your plan to fight crime and the image you want your community to have among potential homebuyers, for example. Stories in the media about your heroic efforts to catch drug dealers may make you feel good, but they will scare away people who are contemplating moving there.”

Paul Singh, senior manager with NeighborWorks America’s Stable Communities Initiative, agrees, saying his team advises organizations to separate “internal stories” from external ones. “Internally, you need to address deficiencies directly and celebrate the work that you are doing. But that is not necessarily what you talk about ‘outside the family.’ Externally, it’s important to promote your assets.”

To help nonprofits create strong brands for their communities and re-build market demand, the initiative launched a Neighborhood Marketing Program in 2012. Through the program, NeighborWorks America is helping 16 organizations across the country implement marketing strategies designed to bolster neighborhood strengths and counter negative perceptions. Seven to 10 more communities will be chosen in 2014.

Don’t repeat the negative

If adverse publicity does occur, you don’t always need to respond! “For many people, the first inclination after a story like the one in The New York Times is to respond just as publicly that ‘most Rutland residents don’t use heroin.’ But what people will remember is the reference to heroin – so you’ve just reminded them of what you want them to forget,” says Biddle. Her organization and the other members of the city's neighborhood-revitalization team (called Project VISION) agreed to turn down the requests flowing in for further interviews on the subject.

Of course, saying “no” to media interviews doesn’t mean not responding at all. Mark Dohan, executive director of the Twin Cities Community Development Corporation (TCCDC) in Fitchburg, MA, recalls when a sensational murder occurred last summer in his town’s Elm Street neighborhood.

The new logo for the Elm Street
neighborhood in Fitchburg, MA.

“The area had been plagued by crime and foreclosures, but we were making good progress in building and selling new houses to reverse the blight in the neighborhood,” says Dohan, whose organization participates in the Neighborhood Marketing Program. “Then came this front-page news. We had to respond; after all, any death is a tragedy. But we decided to deal with facts on the ground, not in the media.”

To acknowledge the loss of human life and help the neighborhood heal, the TCCDC helped to organized a vigil that allowed residents to come together and restore a sense of connectedness. And in the fall, the TCCDC held its first neighborhood-wide open house, attracting an influx of real-estate agents and potential homebuyers. The new logo for the marketing program: “Elm Street: We’re Building a Neighborhood.”

“We went back to the media that covered the neighborhood in the wake of the murder, but after a little time had passed, and with new stories about what’s happening in our community,” says Dohan. “We are re-claiming what defines us.”

In the next blog post: two more lessons from the trenches of PR crises – taking back your story, and preventing disruptions from distracting your team from its work.