Our Best Tips for Connecting Government Infrastructure Projects to Stakeholders
By Erika Turan, Senior Account Executive
You’ve got your presentation deck ready to go. It’s chock-full of charts, graphs, traffic counts, maps marked up with proposed routes — every piece of empirical data you could want to convince someone that your project is a necessary use of public funds.
On its own, that factual information may be enough to convince the powers that be that your proposal is necessary. But without a good story to accompany those numbers, one that illustrates the “why” of your project, you’re relying heavily on your audience’s ability to make sense of the data and connect the dots. And that’s certainly no sure thing, no matter how sharp the decision-making body may be.
Communications Starts with Storytelling
Presentation skills don’t come naturally to all of us. For some people, public speaking can be nerve-wracking, especially if your audience is one with which you aren’t terribly familiar. Thankfully, the key to effective presentations is something almost anyone can do: tell a story.
Think about the human side of what you’re presenting to a municipal or government audience. What story does the data tell? How many lives have been lost or injuries incurred because of the current situation? What has the response from the public been? Are there comments from social media platforms or website comments that can be read to the group to help convey the urgency of the situation? This is often a starting place for our Cincinnati public relations agency.
Use Real World Examples in Your Outreach
For example, survey comments from one project we support in an urban area had several comments regarding safety, such as:
- “I have an unsafe feeling traveling by bike or as a pedestrian in residential neighborhoods.”
- “This intersection is not safe for anyone, but especially the students at the high school and the three retirement communities between those two intersections.”
- “I have safety concerns regarding the fire, police and EMS response time due to congestion and stopped traffic.”
- “Daily I fear being rear-ended when parking near my house by cars in a hurry… every day there are several cars driving the wrong way down my one-way street… I have great concern that someone will be hit by a passing vehicle.”
Incorporating those comments helped bridge the space between those living with infrastructure concerns every day and those in a position to impact it.
Communications Helps Achieve Your Goals
Letting decision-makers hear the voices of those living in these communities who have important safety and travel concerns helps bring those statistics to life. Storytelling is a skill that helps us in our roles as strategists and communicators. It generates attention, educates, forms connections, inspires engagement, persuades and, ultimately, helps achieve your goals.
Want to learn more about how Rasor can help? Reach out to info@gorasor.com or give us a call at 513-793-1234.