Connecting residents to services during a global pandemic
About this project
Client
City of Santa Ana
Services
Community Outreach, Media, Creative
The approach
As one of the largest and most diverse cities in the state of California, the City of Santa Ana was hit particularly hard by the pandemic due to its densely populated neighborhoods, multigenerational family living arrangements and a high concentration of essential service workers. This prompted a tremendous need for relief resources that spanned the gamut from rental assistance, business loans, childcare assistance, health screening and more. Within two weeks of the pandemic declaration, the Santa Ana City Council allocated $28.6 million toward a massive effort to provide assistance programs for residents, businesses, nonprofits and local artists. But they needed to spread the word, and fast, during an extremely saturated media landscape.
The opportunity
JPW was retained by the City of Santa Ana to handle the outreach efforts surrounding this critical program. In record time, and in a newly established virtual environment, JPW mobilized its team to begin this important work of crafting a comprehensive outreach plan that would reach the diverse community and bridge barriers to accessing resources, including language, vehicle ownership, internet access and trust in local government.
The solution
JPW collaborated with Santa Ana staff to craft a comprehensive framework that would guide the development of creative assets as well as map out the outreach strategy using various tools and tactics in the paid, earned, shared and owned media space. The primary goals of the engagement were to increase and educate all audiences about the program, and to increase community participation in programs and services offered. Services included plan development; brand development; key message development; translation services (Spanish, Vietnamese); collateral production including digital, print and out-of-home ads; social media; community outreach meetings; and video production.
Outreach efforts were successful on all fronts with city staff noting a marked uptick in traffic to the Santa Ana CARES website, huge turnouts for mobile resource events within the community, more than 7,500 hotline calls in English, Spanish and Vietnamese, and most importantly, the delivery of much-needed services to a community in need.
By Dec. 31, 2020, the City of Santa Ana had distributed:
$4,689,415 in business grants to 440 Santa Ana businesses
$2,985,239 in housing assistance grants for landlords and tenants
$928,500 in utility assistance grants to 1,857 Santa Ana households
$480,000 in artist grants to Santa Ana-based artists and art organizations
$220,500 in childcare grants to 221 families
$122,580 in isolation assistance for 81 Santa Ana households with a COVID-19 diagnosis
Over 35,000 COVID-19 tests for at-risk populations
Over 300,000 face masks and other supplies at 121 Santa Ana neighborhoods and parks