This document outlines research and planning for a public relations campaign for the Great Promise Partnership (GPP), a program that pairs at-risk high school students with local businesses. The research included interviews with GPP coordinators, surveys of school counselors, and a focus group of past students. Strengths identified for GPP included large student participation in events and an impressive website. Weaknesses were a lack of consistent branding, challenges gathering statewide students, and no press kit. The PR campaign will focus on updating social media, redesigning press materials, and creating videos to showcase students and partners.

1. Creative Consultants
GreatPromisePartnership
FINAL PLAN 2016
Brooklyn Mackenzie
Katie McKeogh
Kayla Watkins
Sabatani Shetu
Kierra Jarman
Luke Chamberlin

2. T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
Research worksheet.............................................................3
Implementation Worksheet.....................................................8
Evaluation Worksheet...... ...................................................10
Examples of Work...............................................................12
2

3. B A C K G R O U N D
In 2012, the GA Department of Community Affairs (or the DCA) launched a pilot program called the
Great Promise Partnership. The program targets at-risk, low-income high school juniors and seniors that are not
on track to graduate, and pairs them up with a "partner" associated with the program. These partners are local
businesses and employers that hire the students and help them gain the real world skills needed to live a success-
ful life and graduate high school. Students hold part time entry-level positions with these partners and are held
to the same expectations as other employees while also continuing to attend school.
GPP is a statewide program with Athens having the biggest program of 60 students. As an alternative,
students that are not able to work part time are offered in school programs that focus on leadership and career
development. This program aims to benefit students, employers, schools, and the community as a whole.
Currently, GPP does not have much in terms of PR, and what they do have is outdated. They haven't had
the time, experience, resources or finances to revamp their PR so we have a lot on our plates. The press that they
received in the past has been a product of their connection to a similar program, Southwire Company, and their
website was created as a donation. Therefore, they do not have a consistent public relations campaign or cohesive
brand.
GPP is lead by President and CEO Mike Beatty, Senior Advisor for Youth Activities Roger Ryles, Man-
aging Director Lori Bodine, and an extensive group of board members. Laurie Murrah-Hanson, coordinator at
GPP, is our contact and Brooklyn MacKenzie is our account executive.
R E S E A R C H
O v e r v i e w
We conducted several different types of research in order to better understand how GPP operates and
how to build the best PR campaign for them. Initially, our team conducted primary research via a phone inter-
view with Laurie. After speaking with Laurie we decided to put together and send out a survey to the high school
counselors that work with GPP. We also received data from a focus group that GPP conducted with past and
current GPP students. All together, this research will help us to create clear, attainable, and measureable goals for
our PR campaign.
P h o n e I n te r v i e w
◦ GPP was started 3 years ago based off of a similar program at Southwire Company that employs 300
high school students
◦ They work with low-income students who are not on track to graduate
◦ The students are typically juniors and seniors but it is more so based off of age (they must be 16 and up)
◦ The program tries to place students with companies that will help students be successful, teach them
valuable lessons in work experience, and provide employment opportunities in the future
◦ Students are also paired with a mentor throughout the duration of the program to guide them through
the process
◦ Last year there were about 480 students enrolled in the program across the state
◦ Athens has one of the biggest programs (60 students)
◦ There is also an in school program that GPP offers that focuses on leadership and career development
for students who can’t work
◦ Annual Events:
■ Leadership Retreat for Students (Nov 6-8) → Educational and fun, combination of workshops
and team building activities
■ Trip to the State Capital (February) → Going to do a press event with the governor
■ Graduation (May) → Right now it is held in Atlanta but they are looking into holding regional
graduation so more students will be able to attend
3

4. S u r ve y
Link: http://bit.ly/1SsZwfO
Screenshots:
4

5. Fo c u s G ro u p Re s u l t s
The Great Promise Partnership, Inc. is an organization that works with teens that are at risk for not graduating
from high school. GPP’s mission is to broaden high school student’s outlook on furthering their education.
Often times students who are not on track to graduate, do not have a strong support system to help motivate
them to make better decisions. The Great Promise Partnership, Inc. offers their support to students who want to
further their education, enter the military or the workforce post graduation. This is contingent upon the student’s
efforts in improving their behavior and academic performance in high school.
To get a better understanding of how the Great Promise Partnership, Inc. improved the lives of students
in their program, the GPP Alumni Council conducted a focus group discussion amongst a small group of re-
spondents, past/current students from their program. In the study, researchers found improvements in the stu-
dents’ behavior, fewer or less extreme behavior referrals, self-confidence, which was the most impactful amongst
the focus groups, individual student interviews, adult coordinators, and academics. One student from the focus
group said, “My confidence level is through the roof!” Another student stated, “Before [this program] I would
hang out w[ith] my friends doing nothing or getting into trouble. [Once] I got the job, (…) my friends got in the
way of me working. [I] [h]ad to decide [whether,] to keep hanging out with friends or to step up and be where
I want to be in life. [It] [m]ade me decide where to put myself. Now I look at things differently, I consider how
they will impact me in the long run.”
When researchers asked the students what they would like to see in the future, they said they would like
to see improvements on how they can remain connected with the Great Promise Partnership after graduation.
Students suggested implementing an alumni database, college cohort, and internship opportunities. Overall, the
students who entered the program all responded positively to the questions asked by the moderator. The exciting
part is many students plan to attend college after graduation. This includes attending college at The University of
Georgia, Georgia Perimeter College, Kennesaw State University, Georgia State University and more. According
to the data, one student says they are attending Kennesaw State University and will work Workplace fulltime
throughout the summer. In conclusion, the Great Promise Partnership, Inc. continues to stand by their mission
with creating a platform for students to achieve their goals and to further their education.
5

6. S W O T A N A L Y S I S
S t re n gt h s :
A key strength for the Great Promise Partnership is its large student participation, specifically with events it
sponsors outside of work and school. In November, GPP hosts a student leadership retreat for its members
and expects a large turn out. The Great Promise Partnership’s largest presence is in Athens with around 60 kids
participating. It’s events such as these, as well as association with organizations like Southwire, provides a lot of
earned media, and GPP essentially gets free publicity. GPP does have an impressive website donated to them that
houses valuable information about the organization and should answer most questions people might have. Their
Youtube account offers the opportunity for others to see visual evidence of students in the workplace and the
effectiveness of the Great Promise Partnership.
We a k n e s s e s :
The Great Promise Partnership faces several obstacles. There is no cohesive brand across the organization, which
hurts its ability to market itself. Currently, GPP uses various donated items to spread information, but none of
these are consistent. It is also a challenge to gather many students in one place, whether it is for a GPP event or
to conduct research. This is due to the geographic challenges in place because the Great Promise Partnership is
spread out over the state of Georgia. It becomes increasingly difficult to manage the more GPP expands. Further-
more, GPP does not have a press kit, which certainly hinders its ability to gain publicity through media outlets.
Its social media presence has also been subpar and needs to be revamped.
O p p o r t u n i t i e s :
At this point, there are tons of opportunities for Great Promise Partnership as far as expanding their public rela-
tions efforts. The organization does not currently have anyone in charge of PR so there is plenty of room to grow
and lots of potential for their public relations campaign.
Because there is such a wide-open range of opportunities our team has decided to narrow our public relations
efforts down to a few specific goals based off of the research we collected. Over the course of the PR campaign we
are planning to update and expand GPP’s social media accounts, re-do and streamline the content, design, and
distribution of GPP’s press materials, and create videos to showcase GPPs students and business partners. We
have decided upon these specific opportunities based off of the feedback we received from Laurie and the talents
of each of our team members.
T h re a t s :
There are a variety of threats that Great Promise Partnership and our PR campaign face. The two main
threats for GPP are a lack of student interest and competition from similar programs. Based off of our secondary
research, there are a few other options that are open to students who are eligible for the GPP program. Other
similar programs that might draw students away from GPP are the Georgia WorkSmart initiative and the Geor-
gia Youth Apprenticeship program. The second main threat that GPP faces is a lack of student interest. If stu-
dents are not aware of the GPP program or do not want to participate, GPP would not be able to continue. That
is why one of the key points of our PR campaign is to re-vamp their social media accounts. In doing so we hope
to connect with students on a regular basis and make the program more visible.
Lastly, a threat that faces our PR campaign itself is using social media in a way that is ineffective as far
as connecting with students. The social media campaign will only be successful if students, parents, and busi-
nesses interact with it. Otherwise, the content will go unnoticed and not help grow Great Promise Partnership.
To address this threat, we conducted research surveys that included questions about social media and how GPP
should use their social media accounts.
Identifying all of these threats will help our team guide the PR campaign and avoid unfavorable outcomes.
6

7. C U R R E N T I N D U S T R Y T R E N D S
1.What’s happening within the product or service category of the client?
a.Service: job skills for high school students through on-the-job experience
b.Trends: US job market and students’ career paths necessitate more vocational training in high
school http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/Vocational_Education_final.pdf
c.3/10 people in the workforce did not graduate from high school
d.In education there has been a focus on college degrees, but really only ¼ of the workforce are in jobs
that require a degree; and 50% of high school students do not go to college.
e.Vocational training like GPP gives students an alternate career path. It helps with dropout preven
tion and helps students land a job post graduation. It is also important because the vast majority of jobs
do not require a college degree. GPP gives students practical experience and helps them get a head start
on building a successful career.
f.High school graduates that are not enrolled in college are the most unemployed. To prevent this group
from growing, vocational training provides a step up to gain access to jobs.
g.Significant jobless rate 5.8% in GA, but a high demand for skilled workers remains unmet. This means
there are jobs available but not enough people qualified for the jobs.
h.According to the Atlanta Regional Commission study, 60% of jobs in GA will require some sort of
post-secondary education (a degree or certificate) within 5 years. But only 38% of high school sopho
mores make it that far.
2.What are the competing organizations?
◦ Georgia WorkSmart initiative - This is a program that offers customized apprenticeships and intern
ships across the state. 30 companies have signed up for the program so far and the program received a
$3million federal grant. The main goal of the Georgia WorkSmart initiative is to help companies draft
and carryout their own on-the-job training, including assistance with classroom coursework and appren-
ticeship curriculum.
◦ Georgia Youth Apprenticeship Program - This is a partnership with businesses giving students on-
the-job training while they are in high school. This program enables student to receive high school diplo
mas, post-secondary certificate or degree and a certification of industry-recognized competencies.
3.What are the competing organizations doing?
◦ One of the main things that sets GPP apart is its dedication to all types of students. GPP accepts stud-
ents with behavioral and other problems who are often not selected for state-funded programs. GPP and
the businesses they partner with are highly invested in the students lives and work closely with them
to keep them on track for graduation, gain work experience, and create a plan for post-graduation. Other
state-funded programs are not so interested in helping the student in this way, although the programs do
still help with graduation rates and education. Essentially, state-funded programs help the end goal of
increasing graduation rates but do not have the personal touch of the Great Promise Partnership Pro
gram.
7

8. I M P L E M E N T A T I O N W O R K S H E E T
Implementation is an extremely important part of a successful public relations campaign. In a separate document,
please provide us with an executive summary of the strategies your team implemented based on the proposed tactics
identified in your plan.
S u m m a r y :
Over the course of the semester, we have been able to implement most of the strategies we outlined in our plan
proposal; minor adjustments were made due to the changing needs of the organization and per our contact’s
(Laurie Murrah-Hanson) requests. We have successfully developed a social media campaign that is currently on-
going across Facebook, Twitter as well as Instagram, which was previously an uncharted platform for GPP. We’ve
also completely revamped their current media kit materials by extracting relevant information, deleting unneces-
sary/outdated information, adding new information and resources to the content and creating a completely new
design for the items. Previously, we did not state that creating a promotional video was one of our goals for GPP,
but as time went on it was clear to Laurie that a new video was a priority for them and something they wanted
us to do. We took on the new project and added the video to our plan with the objective of raising awareness for
GPP and recruiting more students and employers through a fun, informative video.
Below, are the specific goals and objectives that we included in our original plan proposal. The strategies that are
in pink are the ones that we did not implement:
G o a l 1 : B u i l d st u d e n t a n d e m p l o ye r i n te re st i n t h e G re a t P ro m i s e Pa r t n e rs h i p p ro g ra m .
Objective 1: To increase GPP’s overall social media presence. Specifically, we plan to increase the number
of followers on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook by 10 percent by May 2016.
Strategy 1: Generate motivational messages on Twitter and Facebook for current and potential followers.
Strategy 2: Implement creative hashtags to keep the students engaged with the Great Promise Partnership.
Strategy 3: Include monthly/bi monthly contests for students to win prizes such as t-shirts, cups, pens, etc. This
is contingent upon how many referrals a student can get to join the GPP’s Twitter, Instagram, and/or Facebook
pages.
Strategy 4: Use social media as a platform to highlight local business partners and students from the program.
This will help to increase engagement and the organization’s appreciation.
Strategy 5: Follow similar philanthropic organizations on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Objective 2: To create a cohesive brand between all social media accounts.
Strategy 1: Update Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook weekly.
Strategy 2: Include links to the GPP website and social media accounts in all promotional and fundraising mate-
rials.
G o a l 2 : P ro v i d e G P P w i t h p re s s m a te r i a l s t h a t i n c l u d e c l e a r a n d c o n c i s e i n fo r m a t i o n
a b o u t t h e p ro g ra m t h a t c a n b e u s e d b y s c h o o l c o u n s e l o rs t o p a s s o n t o st u d e n t s a n d
p a re n t s a s w e l l a s fo r G P P ’s o t h e r p re s s n e e d s .
Objective 1: To create press items that highlight and explain the process of the GPP program.
Strategy 1: Create promotional materials to give to schools, students, and employers. This includes brochures,
pamphlets, buttons, and fliers.
Strategy 2: Increase awareness by having representatives from the Great Promise Partnership speak at local high
schools and share information about the program and its benefits.
Strategy 3: Use annual surveys to get the student and counselor’s perspective on what can be improved or main-
tained for the upcoming year.
Strategy 4: Send monthly email newsletters to the teachers and counselors involved with the program to keep
them updated with upcoming events, students working on site, testimonials, data (incoming students) and etc.
8

9. A d d i t i o n a l I m p l e m e n t a t i o n S t r a t e g i e s :
After we submitted our plan proposal to Laurie at the Great Promise Partnership, she provided us with feed-
back that prompted us to change some of our plans. Originally, we decided that creating a new promotional
and informational video for GPP would be too difficult and time consuming for our team. However, during our
discussion of the plan proposal, Laurie was adamant about a video and how it would help GPP. Based off of this
discussion, we decided to move forward and begin working on a new video.
Thus far, we have met with a fellow Grady student and film expert who is going to assist us with the filming and
editing process. We are currently creating the outline and talking points for the video as well arranging dates to
do on-site filming.
9

10. E V A L U A T I O N
Objective #1: To increase GPP’s overall social media presence. Specifically, we plan to increase the num-
ber of followers on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook by 10 percent by May 2016.
This objective was not completely met according to the standards that we set but we did come
very close to completing it. Listed below is the number of followers that GPP started with on each of their
social media accounts and the number that they have now.
As the data shows, we were most successful in achieving this objective on Instagram. On this
platform, we exceeded our objective by 13 followers. We were also very successful on Facebook where we
were only one follower short of reaching our goal. On Twitter we were not quite as successful because we
fell eight followers short of our goal. This information will be useful for GPP because they can see that
Facebook is their platform with the largest audience. The data also shows that their Instagram account
has the potential to be very successful considering it gained 83 followers in the past eight weeks.
There are several factors that could have resulted in this objective not being met. First, this could
be an indication that GPP’s audience does not use Twitter as much as it uses Facebook and Instagram.
Also, the lack in Twitter followers could be due to GPP’s audience being unaware of the account. To solve
this problem moving forward, GPP should emphasize linking to their Twitter account when they post on
Facebook and Instagram.
Objective #2: To create a cohesive brand between all social media accounts.
This objective was met because our team created eight weeks worth of social media content for GPP. We
are continuing to create content for GPP and each week the posts continue to receive more engagement.
Over the course of our project we created posts for GPP’s existing Facebook and Twitter accounts and for
the Instagram account that we started for them.
In order to establish cohesiveness between all three accounts, we started several campaigns including
GPP student of the week, GPP alumni of the week and GPP employer of the week. These weekly posts
are shared on all three social media accounts to connect users to each platform. Additionally, we utilized
material from the GPP website to direct viewers to the site.
Lastly, we helped GPP create the right tone across all of their social media accounts by posting in-
spirational, motivational, and informative content. We decided on this type of content based off of GPP’s
audience of students, parents, schools, and potential employers.
10

11. Objective #3: To create press items that highlight and explain the process of the GPP program.
Our team met this objective at the beginning of the spring semester. We created a press kit for
GPP, which includes a backgrounder, a flyer for employees, a flyer for students, and a brochure. All of the
materials in the press kit were updated in terms of content and design from GPPs previous materials. The
majority of this work consisted of consolidating and clarifying the information in GPP’s materials. Our
contact at GPP, Laurie, stressed the importance of creating a press kit because in the past they have had
trouble explaining the GPP program succinctly to students and to potential employers. To fix this
problem, we cut down on the amount of words on each flyer and took out unnecessary or confusing
language from all of the materials.
Additionally, because we completed the press kit so early in the semester, our team decided to
create a promotional video for GPP. We are still working on completing the video but by the end of the
semester we plan to have a 2-3 minute video completed. The video will feature GPP students and their
mentors, employers at GPP work locations, and representatives from the schools that GPP works with.
The video will be an excellent addition to the press kit and will help to explain the GPP program to
others.
11

12. E X A M P L E S O F W O R K
I n s t a g r a m
As apart of our campaign, we decided to do weekly spotlights of GPP alumni or GPP employers on Instagram!
Each week we would share a graphic or a picture of the student to give them recognition. A short summary of
their achievements were written underneath each picture.
E X A M P L E S O F W O R K
I n s t a g r a m
As apart of our campaign, we decided to do weekly spotlights of GPP alumni or GPP employers on Instagram!
Each week we would share a graphic or a picture of the student to give them recognition. A short summary of
their achievements were written underneath each picture.
12

13. E X A M P L E S O F W O R K
T w i t t e r
In an effort to include more information on our social media accounts we posted content on Twitter more fre-
quently than the other accounts. On Twitter we included weekly news and updates within the program, inspira-
tional and uplifting quotes to motivate our followers as well as the links to our other accounts. Within the links
to the accounts our GPP features were included as well. Twitter was able to capture all of these elements into one.
13

14. E X A M P L E S O F W O R K
F a c e b o o k
Similar to our weekly Instagram posts we also included our alumni and employer spotlights on Facebook. In ad-
dition to the spotlight features we also included news and special events occurring within the program. At times
we would also include links to the GPP website to direct followers to join us on our other accounts.
14

15. E X A M P L E S O F W O R K
S t u d e n t F l i e r
15

16. E X A M P L E S O F W O R K
E m p l o y e r F l i e r ( f r o n t )
16

17. E X A M P L E S O F W O R K
E m p l o y e r F l i e r ( b a c k )
17

18. E X A M P L E S O F W O R K
B a c k g r o u n d e r
18

19. E X A M P L E S O F W O R K
B r o c h u r e ( f r o n t )
19

20. E X A M P L E S O F W O R K
B r o c h u r e ( i n s i d e )
20