City Farm SLO Public Relations Campaign
- lilaschoenfield
- Mar 14, 2016
- 14 min read
Abstract
In the duration of 10 weeks, our Public Relations team represented the local non-profit organization City Farm. As objectives, we planned to increase public awareness of the organization, to solidify its brand and identity, and to establish an event for the purpose of donations and publicity. As a team, we established short and long-term attainable goals. Short-term, we were able to conduct research with regards to social media, search engine optimization, and community perception of the organization. Additionally, we pinpointed which audiences City Farm should target, and created a mock website to display a user-friendly option to attract more consumers. Long-term, we were able to lay the groundwork for an event that City Farm can hold in the future, and provide recommendations regarding educational workshops, intern programs, and effective social media use. Working with City Farm on a public relations plan presented various challenges yet offered a unique and rewarding experience.
Client Identification
In 2011, Central Coast Agriculture Network (CCAN) was given a $225,000 grant by the California Department of Food and Agriculture to develop City Farm in San Luis Obispo. In July of 2013, the organization found their first farmer to participate in their farmer incubation program. The farmer incubation program offers cheap land to farmers to provide them an opportunity to learn and get hands-on experience before they purchase their own land. On April 6, 2014, City Farm celebrated its grand opening. They now have three farmers participating in the farmer incubation program on their land. City Farm also offers classes to the local elementary and high school students.
The main service that City Farm provides is “realistic” agricultural education for the average person to understand where their food comes from. This can include you-picks and farm stands.
As part of establishing the organization’s identity, we want to focus on the educational aspect to connect non-farmers to their workshops in order to expand their audiences. The City Farm team mostly wants to figure out where the organization is going to be in 3-5 years, so our Public Relations team focused efforts on future success.
The City Farm team is a subset under organization “Central Coast Grown,” and is run by Executive Director Nicki Anderson, and Administrative Assistant Danielle Armstrong. The land is owned by the city of San Luis Obispo, and is regulated through a 20-year lease.
Although Nicki Anderson does not believe city farm has any real competitors, she strives to be as successful as company “Veggielution,” which is stationed in San Jose. Also, though San Luis Obispo City Ranch is a somewhat similar local organization, she does not believe they are competitors. Instead, she thinks they complement each other, and that City Farm will eventually find its own niche in the San Luis Obispo agriculture community.
Mission Statement: Central Coast Grown creates strong connections among farmers, the public and the land to nourish our community, support local agriculture, and make local food products accessible for all.
Vision: Central Coast Grown envisions a community where local food and farming enterprises are sustained, our food culture thrives, and the coexistence of food production and education fosters a resilient local food system.
Goal: The members of City Farm hope to establish an identity and brand for the organization, and figure out its limitations. Our short term goal is to increase City Farm’s presence in San Luis Obispo. Long term, the organization hopes to establish programs and events that will increase community involvement moving forward.
Chain of Command - Central Coast Grown
President - Steven Marx
Board of Directors - Dr. John Phillips, Terry Hooker, Jerusha Greenwood, Hunter Francis
Farm Manager & Educator - Nicki Anderson
Assistant Farm Manager & Educator - Dena Paolilli
Office Administrator - Danielle Armstrong
One of the key publics that City Farm should establish regular communication with its potential donors, who need an incentive to fund the farm. One project that Nicki Anderson envisions is building a main facility on site, which she approximates will cost around 2 million dollars. Nicki Anderson mentioned that the Board of Directors of Central Coast Grown has made it difficult for her to establish projects and implement her ideas. Beyond donors, two publics for City Farm to focus on include the San Luis Obispo community, and the student population at Cal Poly. Reaching out to these publics on a regular basis would help spread awareness and promote activities and classes City Farm will eventually offer. The organization should focus on the need for the average consumer to understand why agricultural education could benefit them.
Media Channels:
Currently, City Farm does not have its own, official Facebook page. They are frequently posted about on Central Coast Grown’s Facebook page and have an “unofficial page” on Facebook that shows when people mention City Farm or when they tag themselves at the location, but there are no official postings on this page.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/City-Farm-San-Luis-Obispo/220502778157388?fref=ts
City Farm has an official Instagram page where they post updates of what is going on at the Farm. The pictures are high quality and eye catching but the posts are infrequent.
https://www.instagram.com/cityfarmslo/
City Farm has an official Twitter page but there are no postings or company information on it. They are frequently mentioned on Central Coast Grown’s Twitter, however.
https://twitter.com/CityFarmSLO?lang=en
Needs Assessment
SWOT Analysis:
Strengths
Educated, passionate staff members
Workable farm
Board of Directors at Central Coast Grown
Visible location from Highway 101
Weaknesses
Lack of funds
No facilities for certain workshops
Minimal brand awareness
Opportunities
Health-conscious community of SLO
Cal Poly as a resource for volunteers, interns, workshop participants
Education program with Pacific Beach High School
Farmer incubation
Threats
Drought
Competition of other farms with more established programs
Parking issue
The most useful service our team can offer is the information obtained through research. Research focuses on external public opinion of City Farm along with internal strategies for social media, newsletters, and the like.
At the conclusion of the proposed PR campaign, City Farm wants the public to be more aware of their existence as a community engagement tool in sustainable agriculture. We have researched the most effective posts and timing of posts for the different social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Aside the research, mock posts have been created for these platforms to serve as example. Using the free website builder Wix, the PR team created a more engaging website for City Farm as an alternative to their current Wordpress site. Finally, in order to create stronger connections with the Cal Poly community, we explored the option of an intern program, including City Farm’s staff as guest speakers in classrooms, and creating promotional events.
City Farm sublets part of its acreage to small local organic agricultural enterprises, including Green Gold Organics, Javier Magana and Michael Huggins. On one acre, City Farm grows its own garden and row crops for experiment, teaching, cooking and distribution to students and their families, and to local stores, restaurants and food pantries, including the Salvation Army and The Food Bank.
The City Farm School Project is a partnership with Pacific Beach High School that offers hands-on, onsite instruction in gardening and farming skills for two or three hours a week along with classroom discussion and assignments. During its first year, 65 students at the school earned academic credit for this class and learned to prepare soil, plant, cultivate and harvest a variety of crops, and to cook and enjoy eating them in a variety of dishes. The project will continue and expand during the 2015-6 academic year.
The last newsletter sent out by City Farm was from June 2014. Along with urging them to send out a monthly newsletter, we have provided research for effective newsletter communication in the appendix.
Target audience
City Farm will be targeting Cal Poly students, both male and female, in all areas of study because the university is a key component of the community and has an active agriculture program.
Along with Cal Poly students, City Farm’s target audience is health-conscious, well-educated families that are interested in learning about food systems. These families are typically active and engaging with the community by attending events such as the Farmer’s Market.
We created a survey that was shared across Facebook to get an idea of City Farm’s current impact on the Cal Poly campus and understand what would attract students to the farm. This survey should be utilized at a booth at Farmer’s Market, but a booth is out of our budget.
Public Relations Campaign
Current Situation: City Farm does not have a strong online or social media presence, which has prevented them from reaching the community successfully. Additionally, City Farm does not yet have the strong presence or image in the San Luis Obispo community necessary for them to establish strong relationships in the community and provide them the opportunity to grow and become successful.
Goal: To give City Farm the tools they need to further utilize their social media outlets as well as helping them brand themselves in the community by putting on events and solidifying their identity.
Objectives: Social Media
To create a social media plan by March 2016, to be executed by the City Farm team.
To establish an internship program for City Farm and recruit two interns by fall quarter 2016.
To increase public awareness of City Farm in the SLO community by doubling their Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram followers by January 2017 through implementation of the social media plan.
We recommend City Farm establishes their own Facebook and Twitter accounts, as they have with Instagram, and participate in regular posting.
Objectives: Brews with a View
To plan a Brews with a View event, for execution by June 2016.
To achieve 20-person attendance at the Brews with a View event and generate a 50% increase in monetary participant donations one month after the completion of the event.
Target Audience: Brews with a View
For the Brews with a View event, we will be targeting members of the SLO community, male an female, aged 21-30 who live a healthy lifestyle and enjoy hiking and drinking craft beers. They care about where their food comes from, eating organic or locally sourced foods exclusively. They are avid beer drinkers and enjoy sampling new beers from local SLO breweries. Members of this group have an average annual salary of about $30,00 to $40,000 and they spend most of their disposable monthly income on buying fresh, locally grown produce and locally brewed craft beers. On their days off, they can be found hiking in San Luis Obispo and enjoying the outdoors. They are always at Farmers Market on Thursdays looking to buy fresh produce and interact with the farmers who grew it. Our target audience is tech-savvy, and gets most of their news and information from local media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram; however, they often find out about local events from the flyers they see at the local breweries they frequent.
Strategy:
By working with City Farm’s team, we have established a Brews with a View event. This event will allow members of the SLO community to get a better sense of who city farm is and what they do, while participants engage on a hike and drink locally brewed craft beer. Our hope is that this event will increase public awareness of city farm, ultimately increasing volunteers at the farm as well as monetary donations. Keeping in mind our goal to increase public awareness of City Farm in the SLO community, we believe this is the best course of action. As of now, City Farm is not well established or well funded enough to offer many of the services they hope to offer. In planning and executing this event we hope to increase public awareness and interest in City Farm, ultimately increasing donations to City Farm to allow it to further grow and develop.
Key Message:
We want attendees of the Brews with a View event to come away with more knowledge about who City Farm is and what they do. We hope attendants make the connection between supporting locally grown breweries and supporting local farmers. Attendants will see that if they enjoy craft beer and hiking, they might also enjoy fresh, farm-to-table produce that City Farm could offer.
Themes: Farm-to-Table. Locally grown. Locally sourced. Community.
Tactics:
Contact the city of San Luis Obispo to check the legality of a hike with alcoholic beverages.
Contact a brewery to establish donation and help in promoting the event.
Create an online survey and share with Cal Poly students (over 21) and community members to gauge interest for the event and to assess community members’ knowledge of city farm.
Create a survey and gather resources at the Thursday night farmers market to gauge interest and to assess community members’ knowledge of city farm.
Get a booth at SLO’s Thursday night Farmers Market to advertise event and get people to sign up and participate.
Get a booth at Cal Poly during UU hour to advertise the event, City Farm, and to get people to sign up for the event.
Share the event on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to advertise the event and get people to sign up.
Beginning a month before the event, drastically increase social media presence. Post twice a week on Facebook and once a day on Twitter and Instagram. Posts should promote the event and also offer novel information as to not bore the followers.
Make flyers to be put out at local restaurants and on campus near the event.
A news release and media alert be sent out to local newspapers a few weeks in advance of the event as well as upon its conclusion as a recap.
Create a city farm brochure that can be given out at the event and at farmer’s markets to increase awareness and interest of City Farm.
Evaluation:
Overall success of the PR Plan will be measured by an increase in social media followers as well as an increase in donations to the farm. We hope to achieve this by having at least 20 attendants at the Brews with a View event. Additionally, the establishment of an internship program will provide City Farm with the personnel needed to have a greater presence on social media, gaining them more followers and, ultimately, more donations to the farm.
Public Relations Campaign Implementation
City Farm has been featured on several news outlets, including The Tribune, KSBY, KCOY, and Krush 92.5 radio. We hope that the organization will increase media relations, by sending information for a potential news story, or sending a press release to a local media source. In the Appendix, we have included a sample press release regarding the Brews with a View event. Holding an event is a great way to increase the amount of news circulating about an organization.
Media Contacts:
David Sneed of the Tribune - dsneed@thetribunenews.com
Robert Puro of Seedstock - robert@seedstock.com
David Eddy of Growing Produce- DEddy@meistermedia.com
Media Supportives (press Kit, brochures, flyers, fact sheet, news releases) can be found in the appendix.
Brews with a View update:
In planning the Brews with a View event, we found that alcohol cannot be consumed in a public area unless there is explicit consent from the Parks and Recreation department. If City Farm is unable to make an agreement with the city of San Luis Obispo, or find some way around this, we suggest that they alter the event to provide local organic snacks or drinks (non alcoholic if necessary). Nonetheless, the details of this event have been surveyed online, with responses from Cal Poly students that can be found in the Appendix of this PR plan.
After the Brews with a View event (or an alternative event if necessary), Nicki Anderson should thank the participants and encourage them to get involved with City Farm. Additionally, she should formally thank the breweries for donating alcohol and making the event possible. Nicki should take advantage of the publicity, and send out a press release regarding future events and discussing the event that occurred.
Crisis Communication:
City Farm and Central Coast Grown have a number of predictable potential issues that can be prevented or managed before becoming legitimate crises.
Types of potential crises:
Farm using unreasonable amounts of water.
Misusing donations.
Tenant growing marijuana or other illegal substances.
Tenant goes against organic model of CCG.
Natural disturbance (flooding, wind, drought, etc.)
Committee to provide leadership:
Steven Marx, President - primary spokesperson for all matters
Nicki Anderson, Farm Manager & Educator - may be able to answer more specific questions on condition of the farm
Dr. John Phillips, Terry Hooker, Hunter Francis - contacts for Cal Poly-related matters
Strategy for crisis communications:
While each crisis needs to be assessed individually, it is more often than not better to acknowledge the situation before the media or consumers do. If there is an internal issue that has no effect on the public, City Farm is not well-known enough for these internal issues to be of importance to the media. However, in the case that any of the aforementioned potential issues become crises, the President of CCG should reach out to its publics including the media to address the situation.
Apologizing and taking responsibility for the issue is of utmost importance. Deflecting the blame onto another organization or on an employee of the organization only hurts the reputation of the organization further.
If tackled before things get out of hand, the story can be “spun” to generate positive PR.
Farm using unreasonable amounts of water.
Do research, provide statistics to the amount of water used at any agricultural establishment → compare.
Misusing donations.
Discuss ways that these donations will be used to further help the San Luis Obispo community. Give back.
Tenant growing marijuana or other illegal substances.
CCG is handing over the tenant to law enforcement, is ashamed to have had them leased, etc.
Tenant goes against organic model of CCG, uses pesticides.
Reiterate City Farm’s stance on the use of pesticides. State that tenant is no longer vacating a portion of City Farm’s land, and that City Farm is a pesticide-free organization.
Natural disturbance (flooding, wind, drought, etc.)
Doing everything in CCG’s power to restore the farm back to working conditions. We are sad yet hopeful that everything will be fine soon…
Public Relations Campaign Evaluation
When we first started working with City Farm, we had many ideas in mind and not a lot of time and resources to implement them. Early on, we discussed working to increase social media presence, redesigning the website, taking nice photos of the farm, updating the newsletter, starting an intern program, coming up with workshop concepts, as well as planning an event. We soon realized this was too much for us to handle in the short period of time we had, so we focused our efforts on updating the website, increasing social media presence, and planning a Brews with a View event to be implemented later.
Upon evaluation, we found that City Farm was not ready to implement a PR Plan so we began to work in hypotheticals and give them resources they can use in the long term. In the long-term, however, we believe that city farm can benefit from our efforts. The main obstacle to the implementation of our PR Plan is the fact that the farm is still developing. Additionally, City Farm currently has a small staff, and they do not have someone dedicated to PR and managing their social media sites exclusively. We have proposed starting an internship program to help them in this area, however we acknowledge that it will take some time for the City Farm team to find an intern and best decide how to delegate the work.
Our main focus of the PR Plan was planning and executing the Brews with a View event. This event has been in the works nearly the entire quarter, yet is still a long way from becoming a reality. We began research into getting the event approved with the City of San Luis Obispo, but Nicki Anderson has taken over that aspect now as she discusses the legality of the event with the Parks and Recreation department. Additionally, Nicki Anderson is working to establish connections with a brewery that will then donate beer for the event, however it seems that will take more time than we had initially thought. Although the event may still just be in the early phases, we are confident that it will eventually be executed and help to promote City Farm and get their message out to the San Luis Obispo community.
Although we cannot currently determine the results of our PR efforts we believe that, through the implementation of our PR plan directed at the correct audiences, we will get the word out about City Farm.
One thing City Farm hasn’t succeeded in previously is targeting the Cal Poly students that may be interested in what City Farm has to offer. We believe that through establishing an internship program and tabling at the UU they will effectively be able to reach the students and get them more involved in City Farm. Additionally, City Farm’s social media activity has been sporadic and inconsistent and we believe that through the implementation of our social media plan, with help from a PR intern, hey will be able to improve their online presence and get the word out about City Farm.
Through our efforts thus far, we have been able to gain a clear vision of what City Farm can be. We have laid the groundwork for them to have a successful PR campaign in the future and have begun working towards achieving our objectives, which are as follows:
With regards to achieving 20-person attendance at the Brews with a View event as well as generating 50% participant donation, we have done the basic ground work for the event and created a plan that can be followed by the team after we have left. Additionally, we have created brochures, flyers, and a press release that can be used when the event happens.
With regards to establishing an internship program by Summer quarter 2016, we have created applications for the interns that just need to be posted on mustang jobs so students can start applying. We have done all we can for this, it is now up to Nicki Anderson and her team to implement it.
With regards to creating a social media plan, we have created one along with some mock posts that can be implemented by the PR team in the future.
With regards to updating the website, we have completed and submitted it to Nicki Anderson and her team to be reviewed.
In the future, we hope to see City Farm further establish their identity as their own entity rather than as a branch of Central Coast Grown. Additionally, we hope to see our client establish their brand in the community, through the Brews with a View event as well as an increased online presence, so that they are more comfortable reaching out to donors in the future. Ultimately, the future success of City Farm’s PR efforts will rely on this increase online presence and the relationships they build with the community members.
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