“The Hatcher Group worked with us to refresh our strategic communications plan in 2023. A lot has shifted in the past five years in the Chesapeake Bay restoration world, and the team helped us focus our background research to account for a multitude of changing priorities. Hatcher provided high-quality, thoughtful recommendations to form the basis of our strategic communications plan and helped us to refine them to best fit the resources of our small but mighty team.”
– Client
The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) is a one-of-its-kind regional partnership that has coordinated the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed since 1983. CBP brings together members of various state, federal, academic, and local watershed organizations to drive goals aligned with the best available science to attain restoration success.
The CBP Communications Office (CO) team needed a communications partner to support the development of a five-year strategic communications plan to drive engagement with target audiences, enhance the capacity of their internal team, and educate the more than 18 million residents in the area they serve. The team wanted a research-driven analysis of their current communications and a set of strategic communications recommendations to form the basis of their 2023–2027 strategic communications plan.
Hatcher partnered with the CBP CO team to conduct research—from focus groups and interviews to digital media audits and a survey—to understand stakeholder needs and perceptions and also identify challenges and opportunities for the team to enhance communications. Based on this research and our environmental and communications expertise, we developed a set of focused recommendations that formed the basis of the five-year strategic communications plan.
The Chesapeake Bay Program is organized into goal implementation teams, workgroups, committees, and action teams to meet the goals of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement. CBP partners include federal agencies, state and local governments, nonprofits, non-governmental institutions, and academic organizations who work together to meet large goals for the watershed. As the voice of the partnership, the CBP CO communicates the science, policy, and data of the CBP through media outreach, web-and-print-based products, multimedia, and outreach and engagement with stakeholders around the watershed. Despite this diverse group of partners and wide range of communications initiatives, the CBP CO team is comprised of just four full-time staff and one fellow, giving them limited capacity.
Hatcher was an ideal partner to collaborate with CBP CO in understanding their current landscape and communications efforts. We bring communications, outreach, and engagement expertise, as well as familiarity with the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Hatcher also previously worked with the CBP CO team in 2016 on their previous five-year plan, giving us unique insight into the client. Our solid reputation with other watershed nonprofits and agencies, many of which Hatcher has also worked with, allowed us to be a trusted source and gain frank and honest feedback from partners throughout our research.
The basis of our work was research. We conducted nine interviews, six focus groups, and audits—including a comprehensive social media audit—between April–June 2023. Our research findings, coupled with the experience of our full-service strategic communications team, laid the groundwork for our comprehensive research report.
Based on that report, we developed a set of focused, research-based recommendations that formed the basis of the five-year strategic communications plan. Our recommendations included goals, target audiences, tactics, desired outcomes, potential capacity gaps, and measurements of success to reach those goals and audiences.
After reviewing the recommendations with the CBP CO team, we went to the CBP office in Annapolis to facilitate a two-hour, in-person discussion with the communications team to come to a consensus on the recommendations and further guide the development of the five-year strategic plan.
Following this, Hatcher developed and issued a survey about the proposed recommendations to partners to gain their feedback on the new direction. The CBP CO team reviewed results and implemented them into their new plan.
Hatcher’s work with the CBP CO team to develop strategic goals and actionable recommendations will allow the team to make the biggest impact on advancing CBP’s priorities and mission with their partners and stakeholders. With a clear path forward, the team will be able to prioritize communications given their limited capacity and drive results.
Analysis, optimization, and reporting
Qualitative research
Quantitative research
Strategic communications