AWARD WINNING
CASE STUDY
4Natomas
Funding Campaign
The Challenge
Second only to New Orleans, the Natomas Basin, North of Sacramento, is the most at-risk urban area in the country for catastrophic flooding. For over one hundred years, the local reclamation district, RD1000, has been tasked with providing flood protection for its 140,000 residents. Very few residents knew who was responsible for this protection, much less the fact that the critical flood prevention infrastructure had not been updated in over 30 years and required substantial infrastructure improvements. The leadership at RD1000 needed to first educate their constituents, then ask their residents to vote on an increased tax assessment to help fund the nearly $94,000,000 in updates needed to ensure flood safety for the next 30 years.
Nobody likes to pay more in taxes, so we knew there would be some resistance. Starting over 18 months before the vote, RD1000 leadership and our team started planning how to best clearly communicate the initiative's benefits. Our team worked with RD1000 to establish a strategy; develop a clear message around the key benefits; and finally, plan all aspects of the campaign around the key milestones on this critical district-wide vote.
Step 1
Brand the Campaign
Everyone understood the strategy to simplify the story and develop public trust through a new narrative. Through our brand development process, 4 Natomas became the new brand for this awareness campaign. This simple brand would highlight the 4 main benefits RD1000 provided Natomas residents — Levees, Lift Pumps, Lives, and Longevity.
Step 2
Craft the Platforms
Armed with this new brand, our team went to work building the platforms necessary to get the word out to the general public. We began by designing a memorable and friendly branding system and extended it to a unique website, 4natomas.org, which serves as our flexible messaging hub as well as a feature where landowners could enter their information and see their exact economic impact. An explainer video outlined the story and clearly communicated the district's needs. Traffic was sent to the site during the 6-month billboard, local newspaper, social media, direct mail, and targeted, digital streaming audio and video advertising campaign.
Step 3
Deliver the Message
The next steps in our strategy included integrating a paid advertising program with our coordinated mix of strategically-timed earned media and grass-roots, local outreach. The public relations team strategically placed members of RD1000 leadership in the media, at meetings with large landholders, local community meetings, distributing press releases, news articles and op-eds building authority while keeping the public updated on each step of the process and promoting trust in RD1000.
Step 4
Capitalize on the Moment
Our work originally began in 2022 amid a historical drought, with the final vote scheduled to take place during, what would soon become a historically wet winter. During this time, a major New York Times article about the looming threat of mega-storms in the west also helped to bring a national spotlight directly to the Natomas region. The flexible team capitalized on these two events and transformed the message into one of urgency, as the rain began to fall in January of 2023.
Step 5
Get Tactical
Over the course of the next 18 months, the experienced collection of public relations experts, lawyers, copywriters, printers, designers, photographers, videographers, and web developers worked tirelessly to develop the assessment, integrate the program and educate the voters. The Page Design team produced all of these communication materials, including videos and advertisements — even the materials for the actual vote. Ballots, voter guides, and certified return envelopes, with the requisite notifications, were all created and successfully delivered on time to the voters.
Working with the Page Design team has been an absolute pleasure. Their professionalism, expertise, and dedication ensured the success of our campaign. Their commitment to excellence, attention to detail, and innovative ideas went above and beyond our expectations.
Gabe Holleman, RD1000 Operations Manager
Results
Overall, the team delivered over 15 million total impressions over the course of the entire campaign. While impressions are a valuable number to validate our efforts, the true measure would be if the public approved this new assessment. With an historically-high 23% voter turnout, the new assessment measure passed with a 56% majority vote. With the design and communication help of Page Design and the whole RD1000 team, the residents of Natomas had the information they needed to make the courageous decision to help ensure a flood-safe future for Natomas.
56%
majority vote
23%
voter turnout
15 million
Total Impressions
Campaign Earns Top Communication Awards
After the successful vote was complete, the accolades started coming in. In July and August, the campaign won 2 major industry communication awards. The first award was for the National Association of Flood & Stormwater Management Agencies (NAFSMA) where RD1000 won first-place honors for its Excellence in Communications Award. Then the California Special Districts Association (CSDA) awarded RD1000 its 2023 Award for Exceptional Public Outreach & Advocacy by a small district. Both of these awards highlighted the hard work both teams at RD1000 and Page Design accomplished working together.
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