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Public Affairs Case Study: Say Yes 2 Our Schools
Research
Richland County School District Two (hereafter Richland Two) is one of the fastest growing school districts in South Carolina. In 2000 and 2004, the district successfully pursued bond referenda to construct new schools, with both initiatives passing with approximately 70% of the vote. In July 2008, the school board approved a ballot question to ask the community to approve a $306 million bond referendum to meet the facility needs of the district, which has grown by nearly 5,000 students in the past five years. Davis Public Relations and Marketing was hired by the community-based “Say Yes 2 Our Schools” committee to manage all communications activities for the campaign. We met in July with the committee chairman and district personnel to learn more about the need for the referendum and identify needs. In conjunction with research firm Crantford and Associates, we conducted a poll of registered voters in Richland Two to test our messages and to evaluate concerns about the viability of asking for a millage increase ($108 per year on a $100,000 home) in such a difficult economic climate. The poll results were concerning with only 49% indicating support and only 6% undecided. The poll identified the key concerns being those who thought the bond request was coming at a bad time due to the economy and confusion about the specifics of the tax increase. Messages with the most credibility centered on the rapid growth in the district and the fact that the bond would meet the demand of the growing community while keeping property values strong. Despite discouraging results, the poll helped us target our key messages and identify a target universe of key voter groups that were theoretically in the middle on the bond issue – women, Democrats and those under 55.
Planning
The committee met monthly in July, August and September and divided into sub-committees for finance, student outreach, speakers bureau, business community and “Get Out The Vote” (GOTV) efforts. We worked with the district to gather information on successful graduates and district accomplishments, which we used to draft direct mail pieces and website copy. We developed a campaign website, www.yes2ourschools.com, with facts about the bond, success stories of district graduates and a volunteer sign-up feature. We established a Facebook group targeting parents, teachers and district residents, while the student committee chair set up a MySpace page targeting students to encourage them to pass information to their parents. We hired Campaign Systems to conduct a phone bank to narrow our target universe of undecided voters. We evaluated any potential opposition and found that neither of the previous two campaigns had brought out significant, organized opposition. One potential challenge was that two other local school districts were also pursuing bond referenda; unfortunately, one of those districts has been under intense public scrutiny due to a series of scandals and was receiving negative media attention for their bond campaign. This underscored our message strategy of focusing on Richland Two’s proven accountability and promises kept to voters and parents. The campaign budget was approximately $90,000 (see appendix for expenditures). The committee had $19,000 to carry over from the 2004 bond campaign and developed a fundraising committee to raise the balance needed to fund the proposed plan.
Execution
The campaign website, www.yes2ourschools.com, and social networking pages were all launched on September 21. We contacted candidates for the House, Senate, county council and school board offices that covered the district to seek their endorsements for the bond and to ask them to speak in favor of it during campaign speeches. The coalition chairs and district superintendent met with the editorial board of our daily newspaper, The State, resulting in a favorable editorial. The Speakers Bureau spread out across the district to make presentations to school and neighborhood groups. We secured both print and television news stories that shed a favorable light on the need for the bond. The first direct mail piece was sent to 22,000 homes on September 29 to arrive before the full voter contact program (phone bank) to our targeted universe began October 3. The program included a Voter ID call which delivered a positive message about the referendum and ascertained the household’s favorability towards passing the referendum and posting a yard sign. We mailed the second direct mail piece to the same universe of voters on October 9. As the phone bank narrowed our list of undecided voters, we mailed a third piece to 3,000 voters on October 20 followed by a final mailer on October 30 in conjunction with “get out the vote” calls to those households that we identified as supporting the referendum. We distributed lists of undecided voters to the committee to encourage neighborhood canvassing and personal phone calls to help those voters make a “yes” decision. As fundraising for the project slowed, we decided to eliminate our plans for paid ads to focus our efforts on direct contact with households in the target audience. In addition to the committee’s outreach efforts, the district promoted voter registration to new teachers, held faculty and teacher forums, and sent out phone messages from the superintendent.
Evaluation
The bond referendum passed with 68% of the vote – a remarkable accomplishment considering initial poll results and the difficult economic climate. All but two precincts passed the referendum, with precinct support ranging from 52.55% to 85.15%. The other local districts also passed their referenda, publicly crediting Richland Two’s success for helping their own efforts.