Project
Reno/Hutchinson Community
Hutchinson Embrace: Building Trust in Our Community Brand
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Proposal Summary
Fund for Reno County – FY24 The City of Hutchinson will repair communication lines and restore trust in its name by clearly defining and correcting broken systems, utilizing the voices of community stakeholders. The people of Hutchinson will look to their local government for information on City-related services, programs, initiatives; and trust that the information will be easy to find, accurate, and reasonable. Lines of communication between the city and its residents, and the city and its employees will be clear, concise, and represent the values of its people. By enhancing the CityÂ’s communications efforts, we will foster trust, community engagement and a sense of pride in our residents. When the people of Hutchinson confidently know where to look for information, and they know the information was carefully thought out and shared with intention, we can build bridges and repair damaged relationships with our citizens. We can be a local government that is known for caring about its people. A faceless government isnÂ’t loveable- but City Hall is full of real people, who care about our residents. Our hope and vision is that the community can feel the changes we are making, but we know that hope isnÂ’t a strategy.
Community Impact & Accomplishments To-Date
Qualitatively- We want people to know that our new faces come with a new chapter, and more importantly- that we see the faces of our residents too, and we are glad they live here. We get the “warm fuzzies” when we think about them. Every step we take to improve relationships with our residents is progress worth celebrating.
Quantitatively- We will know that we are successful if our organization is better prepared to communicate city initiatives and programming to citizens. Citizens will see a more transparent government and will have better access to information. The city will create more opportunities for community engagement and will provide more opportunities for citizens to be part of decision making. We are hoping to track success of parts of this plan by monitoring online traffic, engagement, and views; ensuring we are getting the right reach, as well as documenting feedback from residents about the use of our website, confusion on messaging, and reliability of our content.
Why Do You Think This Project Is Necessary?
It is hard to love your local gov’t. few people get the “warm fuzzies” when thinking about City Hall, ordinances, or fence permits. Our residents have been on a scary ride with its local government the last few years. Turnover starting at the top and pushing downward; new faces and restructuring have made things hard to navigate for city workers, so it is doubly confusing for residents who are last on the communication chain. The time to make this change is now; when you walk through City Hall, there are many new faces, these faces represent a change in attitudes, long-held beliefs and energy that are coming out of our local gov’t. One new face is our Communications Manager, Jessica, part of her job is to improve internal and external communications and community engagement but without a plan, we are losing out on the ability to change perceptions through effective communication when its needed most. We have brand standards but we lack the necessary structure to use them effectively, we have no communications plan and no community engagement process. This lack of resources has caused significant issues internally and externally, and the community has not been engaged in or informed of our initiatives. We donÂ’t often get to publicly celebrate our wins and are often the bearers of bad news and the target of peopleÂ’s frustration and criticism. City employees are rarely given the opportunity to be proactive when it comes to facing challenges, instead, our work is more reactive in nature. When water lines break, we close the road; when a windstorm destroys property, we coordinate dump sites and clean-up efforts, on the other hand, when something goes well, we are rarely the ones being acknowledged for the work because we partner with many nonprofits, vendors, organizations, and businesses that are the face of these projects. We will seek a contractor to create a communication and marketing plan over a 7-week period. They will facilitate community interviews, create guidelines for communication, and and provide a detailed plan of action with steps to follow to ensure successful implementation of the plan. We want to be clear; we are not asking for $10,000 to create a new logo to encourage brand recognition. We are seeking to change the way we engage with the community and update the communication paths that arenÂ’t serving our residents and employees. This is about creating trust in our messaging, raising awareness and highlighting transparency as a core value.
Collaborative Partners
People Working On The Project
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