Advocacy Navigator for Community Colleges

Advocacy Navigator is a full suite of communications services to help community colleges develop compelling stories that support advocacy for funding and policy change. It offers solutions at a time when policymakers are desperate to save local economies.

Contact Douglas Gould and Company today for more information.

What We Know Works

• Research to determine the most effective messages and carefully target the supporters who can advance your cause.
• Training of key spokespersons and advocates who lead the charge in your messaging – particularly presidents and trustees who can compel various audiences to act when they have the right messages to convey.
• Strong Messages that inform publics about what community colleges add to your state's bottom line.
• Effective Tactics to turbo-charge your advocacy efforts.

What does Advocacy Navigator provide?

• Focus Group – To create questions and assess areas of concern.
• Message Testing Poll – Conducted by our strategic partners, the FDR Group, to prove which messages will work best, benchmark public opinion, and identify public opinion weaknesses and strengths that need to be addressed.
• Confidential Advisory Memo – A proprietary document on problems that the research reveals with recommendations on how to address challenges.
• Make the Case Report – An advocacy plan that outlines how community college advocates in your state can engage key potential business partners and policymakers. This can be shared by college presidents, development departments, and advocates alike to make sure that all are on the right page when it comes to reaching funders and public officials.
• Training Session – Our trainings simulate real-life media encounters and boost your lead spokesperson's public speaking confidence. We also provide personalized DVD's of the training to help spokespersons prep for upcoming interviews or speaking engagements and learn from their mistakes.

How do we know this works?

We've worked with community college systems in seven states to provide research and communications strategies that boost effective advocacy.

We are familiar with how to get things done within the community college system and offer a combination of strategic and tactical implementations that provide maximum impact and positive results.

Our professionals have created and led programs that leverage the value and visibility of community colleges within frameworks that present them from a fresh, engaging perspective.

What Sets Us Apart?

We recently conducted statewide opinion research and message development in California that resulted in a primer for community college advocacy called, "Make the Case for California Community Colleges."

We have taught leaders how to tell these stories in a number of mediums and we know what works. Recently, Douglas Gould penned a thought leadership piece, " Don’t Let the Downturn Get You Down," published in the Chronicle of Higher Education and the Community College Times that offered advice on how state community college systems can defend against budget cuts by accentuating their value to state economies.

Read more about our work with Community Colleges.