How do we accentuate the voice of an organization and help them create a centralized brand identity?

Challenge

The Columbia Justice Lab is a criminal legal system research and advocacy nonprofit, affiliated with Columbia University, whose work ranges from reentry and probation to parole and youth justice. With various research teams and no dedicated/centralized communications staff, the voice and messaging of the Lab was disjointed and unclear.

CJL asked KMSG to support with:

  • Direct support redefining the goals and trajectory for the voice of the Lab

  • Help with developing a collection of resources for the Lab’s non-communications staff to be able to draw upon for public, outward-facing content and commentary

  • Tools to improve the engagement and growth of the Lab on social media, particularly on Twitter (a platform heavily used by their peers)

  • Crafting communications collateral, including messaging, fact sheets, social media toolkits, op-eds and live event outlines/strategies to support and amplify the research, reports, and work the Lab was leading

Context

KMSG accomplished the following:

  • Placed a story in the Houston Chronicle highlighting the efforts the Lab and their partners led to reduce the number of youth incarcerated in Harris County, Texas

  • Supported the Columbia Justice Lab team with the creation of a donor-specific messaging brief to aid them in conversations with potential funders and partners

  • Led a series of workshops for all Lab staff on messaging and storytelling, grounding these new-found practices in the work they were currently leading

  • Crafted new narratives to support the research of their projects, including drafting, pitching, and placing an op-ed in The Hill, the foremost prominent policy outlet in the US, responding to a critical moment in history: the rollback of Roe v. Wade and its implication for people seeking reproductive care in prison and on parole

  • Live tweeted a series of webinars and expanded visibility on Twitter by creating a #JusticeLabLive hashtag

  • Drafted 7 social media toolkits used to share new reports, webinars, and call-to-action policies, which includes content for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and email newsletters

  • Interviewed 21 attendees at two Lab-hosted conferences in New York City and Philadelphia to direct a visual storytelling project that captured the preeminent policy ideas in the youth justice and probation/parole spaces

Action & Impact

Read the entire article in the Houston Chronicle: Harris County youth justice reinvestment fund touted as model

Read the entire op-ed in the The Hill:
Abortion on parole: Access to reproductive care cannot exclude those in our prison systems

Example Social Media Toolkit

This toolkit is from the release of Process Matters, a report that “details the context, process, and challenges of the work, as well as Harris County's successes to date and lessons for other jurisdictions looking to transform youth justice through reinvestment funds and community-based support for youth.”

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