Clients

Digital Strategy for the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters

Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness has a simple, yet daunting, goal: protect the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from the threat of sulfide mining, which would continually pollute this national treasure for at least 500 years. The organization launched a campaign to “Save the Boundary Waters,” asking Seiche to conceptualize and manage its digital and social media strategy. Seiche worked closely with the campaign to understand the goals of its digital engagement, which included educating key audiences about the dangers of sulfide mining, and connecting people with opportunities to support the campaign through volunteers and donations.

Given the time-sensitive nature of the work, the team quickly built a digital engagement strategy and workplan, which included an ambitious content development approach that would tell the story across numerous digital and social media channels.

Seiche knows that rich content – photos, videos and original writing – would be critical to growing and engaging online audiences. The company established a content/advertising partnership with a local media company, conceptualized a video series of people sharing stories of their experiences in the Boundary Waters and hired/managed a videographer to capture those stories. At the same time, Seiche worked closely with Gorton Studios to build www.savetheboundarywaters.org, establish the social media channels and build an advertising plan to effectively market content to key audiences.

This digital and social media strategy is a cornerstone of the campaign’s success – it has attracted tens of thousands of engaged followers across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, which has helped the campaign recruit dozens of volunteers and raise thousands of dollars in donations for the campaign. The end result is a digital strategy that engages people – facilitating action that otherwise would not have occurred.

Communications Planning and Digital Strategy

The publication of Richard Louv’s book “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder” catalyzed a grassroots movement to reconnect children with nature. Since 2006, Children & Nature Network has worked to fuel that movement
by elevating the latest news and research as well as the voices of movement leaders.

Children & Nature Network asked Seiche to evaluate its communications objectives, framing, messaging and editorial process, and author an organizational communications plan. The research highlighted how Children & Nature Network's content strategy helped the organization build a powerful network of parents, educators and professionals from across the globe, and informed the development of a communications plan focused on helping this network learn, connect and act.

Our team also served as a digital partner for Children & Nature Network, leading social media strategy, paid media, audience analysis and ongoing content creation – writing, infographics and more.

Communications Training for Native Arts & Culture

Seiche partnered with First Nations Development Institute (FNDI) to lead a series of  in-person and webinar-based communications trainings, focused on building the communications capacity of grantees in FNDI’s Native Arts Capacity Building Initiative.

Many grantees worked individually or in small organizations; some focused on selling their art, while others wanted to attract community members to galleries or events. Recognizing that art was a cultural asset, our team helped grantees recognize and appreciate the communications work they were already undertaking – including one-on-one conversations – while highlighting new, low-cost/high impact opportunities to strengthen messaging, marketing and evaluation.

Our team placed a high priority on cultural competence, ensuring that trainings were developed and delivered in ways that honored and respected Native cultural practices and traditions. Grantees gave high ratings to the trainings, which led to our team being asked to deliver an additional webinar training before the project was completed.

Digital Strategy and Targeted Outreach

GHR Foundation initiated a BridgeBuilder Challenge process, in collaboration with OpenIDEO, to support new and innovative projects that respond to needs in the areas of global development, education and health.

Seiche was  asked to develop a digital strategy to help ensure the success of the challenge. Through inclusive digital outreach strategies, Seiche helped produce the most successful OpenIdeo challenge to date, drawing applications from nearly every country in the world.

Leaning into strengths: Using a journalistic approach to impact reporting
Since 2005, our country has lost more than one-fourth of its newspapers, and we’re on track to lose a third by 2025. Independent journalism provides critical access to news and information that can inform everyday decisions and sustain grassroots democracy. Energy News Network, a nonprofit news site dedicated to reporting on the transition to a clean energy economy, needed a better way to communicate the impact of their reporting to funders. To ensure their reporters could bring their nuanced and informed lens to energy reporting missing in most newspapers, Energy News Network partnered with Seiche to help current and potential funders understand the impact of their journalism.

“Measuring impact is a major challenge for nonprofits. Seiche provides a critical service by producing case studies and testimonials for our funders and other partners. These reports have revolutionized the way we communicate the value of our work.” Ken Paulman, director, Energy News Network

What We Did
Energy News Network was founded on the belief that good journalism can help people make more informed decisions. With that in mind, we took our own journalistic approach to impact reporting, searching for and uplifting the stories of people and organizations who are impacted by Energy News Network’s independent reporting.

Looking back to look forward: We started by reviewing Energy News Network’s past impact reports. We understood that quantitative metrics were important, and we wanted to focus on the ones that would have the highest impact and meaning for potential funders, like article republications, social media mentions and shares, and article views.

Chasing down the story: Qualitative feedback in the form of stories can be the most powerful way to convey impact, but it takes a lot of effort to find and chase down a story. We set up a new digital system to collect and monitor feedback from individuals quoted in Energy News Network stories. Each quarter, Seiche conducts research and interviews people whose work has been positively impacted by Energy News Network reporting in communities and statehouses.

A long-term relationship: The Seiche team continues to partner with Energy News Network on their impact reports, combining our wealth of experience in journalism with our creative communications approach. We continue to put into action new ways to mobilize funding for their work at a time when independent journalism is critically important.

"The impact reports highlight the crucial reach, expertise, depth of community connection, and nuance that the Energy News Network brings to their reporting on our transition to a clean energy future. They really help make the case for the importance of investing in nonprofit, independent journalism." Sarah Christiansen, midwest climate and energy program director, McKnight Foundation

Digital Communications Strategy and Support

Seiche has worked with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for many years; Katie has served as a communications advisor for WKKF from 2004-2006, and from 2009-present. Seiche's work with the foundation has been broad – including high-level communications strategy, event planning and management, grantee technical assistance, social media strategy, messaging, research, earned media, policy communications and communications evaluation, among other activities.

In recent years, Seiche has served as WKKF’s digital communications partner, with work including:
+ Developing a digital landscape analysis, which is helping the foundation re-assess its digital communications presence and strategies;
+ Leading digital campaign strategies for major foundation priorities, including efforts related to its racial equity programming;
+ Launching a Twitter account and working with the foundation’s agency partners to build the account to more than 30,000 followers;
+ Overseeing the foundation’s paid media strategies on social media;
+ Developing event-based digital strategies, including multimedia storytelling, digital lounges, microsites, social media technical assistance for grantees and digital storytelling/engagement strategies;
+ Conducting social media monitoring, management and metrics reporting;
+ Providing staff and grantee trainings on communications – topics include media relations, social media, storytelling, communications planning and more.