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COG Uses Research, Verified Data, and Community Involvement to Identify and Address the Most Pressing Risks to Communities
While traditional outreach models like mail, digital advertisements, and social media posts are critical to reaching constituencies, encouraging constituencies take positive actions requires an added in-person approach to help augment the communications. The COG method is proactive and seeks out residents where they are, eliminating much of the uncertainty in resource identification and connection. It requires a ground game with direct face-to-face contact to achieve educational and outreach success. Because of the current fractured media landscape and mass consumption of content from multiple sources beyond traditional cable television, such as email boxes, mailboxes flooded with spam, and social media saturated with pernicious misinformation, COG employs direct peer-to-peer communication which is the most reliable method to cut through all the noise. The Civic Operations Group has gathered the most experienced and diverse team of community organizers in the country.
Meeting residents where they are is at the core of the COG model. Diversifying our methods of contact ensures that we maximize our reach and, therefore, our impact within the community. The COG teams connects with residents through various means including:
● Door-to-door canvassing
● Events
● High-transit areas (hotspot) canvassing
● Phones, SMS, and digital outreach
● Mail and printed materials
An engaged public is critical to accomplishing goals that require the distribution of shared public resources. COG knows how to engage with residents on issues they may not be aware of. Our blended communications approach overlaps messaging which reinforces our client’s agenda and priorities.
The COVID-19 pandemic has proven how deadly wild and unverified information can be, and how fast it can spread through communities. Our team employs disciplined fact-checking and strategic partnerships to inform our outreach programs to combat rampant mis- or disinformation. By identifying, monitoring and understanding the intent behind false narratives, we effectively prepare our teams to counter them by providing reasoned and verifiable counter-narratives.
Rapid response is critical during emergencies and COG prides itself on the ability to scale quickly. When disaster strikes, COG can construct a program within days to get resources in the hands of those residents most impacted, or quickly train teams already on the ground to pivot their conversations towards emergency response resources.
In times of personal stress and global uncertainty, residents need to know that they have someone working on their behalf: COG amplifies the good work of our government, private, and corporate clients by branding outreach communications with the client’s name, logo, and preferred design language. This helps tie the resources and goodwill being delivered by our community organizers to the organizations funding the services.
Traditional communications methods often fall short when attempting to contact the hardest-hit and most marginalized residents. Mail, digital, and social media cannot accomplish what a trained community outreach professional can when meeting residents at their home and providing direct assistance with critical resources and often cumbersome application processes. Compared to traditional communications methods the COG approach is the most proactive and effective way to get resources quickly into the hands of the most vulnerable.
