1. A Case Study
Grassroots Strategies For Public Relations Practitioners Working
With Underserved Communities
By Jennifer Vardeman-Winter
Alannah Finnan and Kristina Horsley
2. Background of the Case
● Purpose:
○ to interview public relations practitioners and communicators at grassroots health
organizations to learn their communication strategies with underserved communities
● Total of 10 Participants:
○ all working for organizations whose missions focused on women’s causes
■ 4 CHWs/ Health Educators
■ 3 Executive Directors
■ 3 Program/ Outreach Managers and Communicators
● Limited Geographically:
3. Guiding Research Question
The Question Guiding the Study:
“How do grassroots
communicators overcome the
challenges they face in
working with publics from
underserved communities?”
4. Conducting the Study
● Vardeman-Winter conducted qualitative, in-depth interviews with 10 practitioners
● The interview guide consisted of 26 questions that “explore basic concepts in this study.” These
concepts include:
○ Organizational mission and participants’ role
○ Public communication factors
○ Grassroots programming and women
○ Cultural factors in programming
○ Dynamics of publics-incorporation in programming
○ Dynamics of communicator-publics differences
5. Case Study Findings
Vardeman-Winter’s findings:
to overcome the challenges communicators face in working with women from underserved
communities, health organizations implement a number of “grassroots based strategies”
what exactly does grassroots mean?
Local to national
Strategies include:
Public participation in decision making:
An inside-out approach: belief that the inner strengths and capabilities of the
organization will make the organization prevail
Practices of identity reflexivity: participant’s have processes in place to ensure they do
not “elevate themselves” above their publics.
6. Why is PR needed?
“Underserved populations are important to study from a public relations
perspective because campaigns targeting them expend significant
dollars and represent a sizeable portion (approximately 20%) of public
relations services.”
7. Key Non-profit PR Approaches Used
Vardeman-Winter conducted study while still a student
There was no organizational board participating in the research
Note :: Vardeman-Winter’s educational institutio did supply approval of survey questions used
Only fundraising used was grant money
Note :: Vardeman-Winter’s educational institution provided the grant money
Used to purchase gift cards → not as incentive, but as a thank you
How were volunteers found?
Vardeman-Winter used previous contacts
8. “What would we do?”
What was missing from this study?
Range of participants
Vardeman-Winter conducted this study using only women who worked with organizations that
focused on women’s health.
What would we do differently?
Include a wider range of participants
Multitude of participants from a number of health organizations, men and women
Also attempt to include participants in similar communication positions across the nation
In doing this, we could decrease the limitations of this study and expand the scope of the many
different strategies that can be used when working with underserved communities
9. Conclusion
This study provided:
Theoretical development for nonprofit public relations professionals and
communicators
Practical skills for accomplishing better relationships with different publics in different
communities
“Actionable ways to accomplish [grounded approaches to communication
campaigns]”
“Premises upon which to build testable theory about the relationships between
grounded strategies and tactics and health communication outcomes”
10. References
Vardeman-Winter, J. (2015). Navigation and grounded communication:
Grassroots strategies for public relations practitioners working with
underserved communities. Public relations in the nonprofit sector:
Theory and Practice (pp. 124-140).
