Purpose

The acceleration of global climate change threatens the health of both the environment and communities within Meridian Township and beyond. Meridian Township can help protect the communities and ecosystems through the promotion of best municipal and household level sustainability practice. This is often easier said than done due to barriers facing the majority of municipalities including: lack of resources, staffing capacity, overstretch, and budgetary constraints. To alleviate these burdens to an extent, this toolkit offers Meridian Township a comprehensive guide to running a successful sustainability-centric communications campaign and ready-made content adaptable for a wide array of media mediums.

The intention of this toolkit is to aid Meridian Township in developing a long-term system to share and promote best sustainability practices to communities within its jurisdiction. Empowering residents to adopt greater sustainability practice — starting at the household level—will translate into a wider movement towards fostering a 'greener' Meridian Township.

Why? How? Who?

The benefits of adopting greater sustainability practice, starting at the household level (e.g. planting native gardens, composting, etc.) and to a broader community level (e.g. participating in environmental town halls, attending green volunteer events, etc.) benefits everyone. In an era of unprecedented climate risk, it is pertinent that the Meridian community bands together to reverse this harmful trend through collective sustainability-centric action.

Meridian Township can use the Green Meridian Communications toolkit to produce and disseminate valuable sustainability messaging to communities to generate greater local environmental stewardship.

Methodology Statement

The communications strategy and media package was developed through analyzing a variety of case studies from successful municipal sustainability campaigns in addition to general best communications practice resources. The strategy harnessed insights and feedback from residents and Township officials in Meridian township through the analysis of weekly Green Dialogue community convenings, meetings with Meridian Township's Environmental Coordinator (LeRoy Harvey), Communications Department leads (Andrea Smiley and Brandie Yates), and Graham Sustainability Institute's Communication Specialist (Alex Haddad).

Green Meridian Communications Strategy and Media Package Navigation

The Meridian Green Communications Strategy and Media Package is split into 4 sections that contain ready-made content for township dissemination to promote Green Meridian through a targeted, green grant focused, communications strategy. To access these materials, simply use the navigation slider on the left side of the website and browse, or click here to access the strategy and package website navigation hub. These documents and design resources are also available here in the Google Drive resource drive repository.

The Meridian Green Communications Strategy and Media Package is split into 4 folders that contain ready-made content for township dissemination. The first folder titled “Communications Campaign, Logic Model, Cross-Promotional Contacts, and Editorial Calendar” contains documents surrounding the Green Grant centric communications strategy, a logic model that outlines the general problem statement, target audience, and goals of the campaign, a list of cross-promotional contacts, and an editorial calendar for content dissemination.

The second folder titled “Green Grant Projects” contains the comprehensive Green Programs Spreadsheet, specific folders for each Green Grant project with tailored media content and resources, and a Green Grant media template design folder. The “Green Grant Projects'' folder contains a write-up document, a transferable canva template design document, connected township assets/programming document, social media graphic post, and flier for each specific grant project. The “Green Grants Projects” Folder also includes a sub-folder titled, “Green Meridian Asset Connections and Customizable Templates” that contains “The Green Programs Spreadsheet” and a document with photo examples and hyperlinks to affiliated Green Meridian programming customizable templates for asset connections. The “Green Programs Spreadsheet” compiles the Green Grant program materials in tab one, all existing Meridian Township ‘green’ programming and media resources in tab two (both township and CLC generated), Green Meridian specific initiatives in tab three, and other green projects (e.g. community gardens) in tab four.

The third folder titled “CLC and Meridian Press Release Content'' contains a press release for the CLC fellow site visit to the Wastewater Recovery Facility (WWRF) which Meridian Township uses for sustainable wastewater treatment and management, and one for the CLC trip to Meridian Township’s ‘green’ sites (e.g. community solar garden and municipal historic campus). The “WWRF Press Release” folder has a write-up document, links to affiliated press, relevant township programming, hashtags and links to photos from the site visit with captions. The “Meridian Tour Press Release” folder has a write-up document, relevant township programming, affiliated press, hashtags and links to photos from the walkthrough with captions.

The third folder titled “Meridian Township Brand Standards” contains a document with considerations for using Meridian Township brand standards when creating media and communications content. To access all the aforementioned materials, see the navigation guide below.