3. Causeway’s companies
Causeway is a not-for-profit community economic development agency that empowers and
supports people facing significant barriers to employment, to help them find rewarding work
and live more independently.
KRACKERS KATERING IS A SMALL CATERING COMPANY THAT PROVIDES EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING FOR individuals
who have experienced barriers to employment, including people with disabilities and those who
are economically disadvantaged.
GOOD NATURE GROUNDSKEEPING IS A LAWN AND YARD MAINTENANCE COMPANY offering its services to the
Ottawa community and at the same time providing training and employment to people who are
economically disadvantaged.
RIGHTBIKE IS A COMMUNITY-OWNED AND NEIGHBOURHOOD-BASED BIKE SHARING SERVICE OPERATING IN
WELLINGTON WEST, WESTBORO, AND THE GLEBE. RIGHTBIKE PROMOTES HEALTHY AND ACTIVE LIFESTYLES, AS WELL
AS SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION
CYCLE SALVATION PROVIDES TRAINING IN BIKE MECHANICS TO PEOPLE WHO ARE ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED
AND AT THE SAME TIME DIVERTS BIKES DESTINED FOR SCRAP AND LANDFILL. THEY HAVE A TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE OF
PEOPLE, PROFIT, AND PLANET.
5. Methodology
Initial contact with Causeway Work Centre and their
counterparts was done through email.
Outlined the purpose for contacting their organization
and what we hope to accomplish with our strategic
communications audit.
Set up meetings with Causeway, Krackers Katering, and
Cycle Salvation
Using Julia Coffman’s framework for analysing
performance through a Strategic Communications
Audit
6. Level of Practice: Causeway
Two main forms of communication are website and
posters
- Website is not updated often and content it unclear
- Posters around neighborhood
Social media
- Facebook and Twitter
10. Areas of Improvement: Cycle Salvation
Take advantage of existing partnerships
Move towards sustainability while planning and
institutionalizing communications practices - as
resources become available
11. Areas of Improvement: Causeway
Press Release
Bi-monthly meetings
Website Redesign
16. Unexpected Outcomes: Causeway
Struggling with strategic communication as an
organization
Limited resources yet extraordinary services
Little media coverage
18. Unexpected Outcomes: Cycle Salvation
Lack of communication between company and
organization
Work with clientele to match needs and demand
Communications and promotion is not a focal point
Causeway Work Centre is a community economic development organization that empowers and supports people in overcoming disabilities and other challenges to help them find rewarding work and live more independently. Causeway assists people with mental health issues find employment.Fueling economic development in the Ottawa Region, Causeway offers innovative training and employment programs, one-on-one support, and cross-sector partnerships. What’s more, they create socially minded businesses. Through this commitment, Causeway has been able to support a broader spectrum of disadvantaged people, including those battling mental health or those new to the country (refugees) who are in need of new skills to apply in the workforce. This has initiated the piloting of new ventures that address community needs, and becoming more involved in the area of social enterprises.Causeway is a not for profit agency with a staff of some 30 full- and part-time employees. Causeway is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors. All funds raised go towards enhancing the facilities and supporting the programs, services and social businesses of Causeway Work Centre.Currently, there are four social enterprises that operate under the Causeway Work Centre umbrella:1. Krackers Katering: a small catering company that provides employment and training for individuals who have experienced barriers to employment, including people with disabilities and those who are economically disadvantaged.2. Good Nature Groundskeeping: a lawn and yard maintenance company offering its services to the Ottawa community and at the same time providing training and employment to people who are economically disadvantaged.3. Cycle Salvation: provides training in bike mechanics to people who are economically disadvantaged and at the same time diverts bikes destined for scrap and landfill. They have a triple bottom line of people, profit, and planet.4. RightBike: a community-owned and neighbourhood-based bike sharing service operating in Wellington West, Westboro, and the Glebe. RightBike promotes healthy and active lifestyles, as well as sustainable transportation.In reference to our Strategic Communications Audit, we have analyzed Causeway Work Centre in addition to Krackers Katering and Cycle Salvation. We largely emphasize on Causeway for the majority of our audit and support it with the two social enterprises to determine if their communication efforts are synchronized across all platforms associated with the organization.
Initially we chose to email Causeway Work Centre to communicate our interest in the company and determine if they would be interested in working with us to accomplish a strategic audit. (Please see Appendix A for initial email communication with Causeway Work Centre). They expressed interest in our involvement.From there we set up a meeting with employees at Causeway and at Cycle Salvation respectively (Krackers Katering is located in the Causeway building and we were able to perform an interview at the same time as our Causeway interview). Two people conducted the interviews for Causeway and Krackers Katering, while another two performed the interview at Cycle Salvation.
Using the data we have collected, we analyzed and evaluated Causeway as well as the small enterprises based on Julia Coffman’s framework for analyzing and performing Strategic Communications Audits. It has allowed us to identify where the organization currently stands in terms of its performance and capacity. Through assessing the website, their social media, and performing interviews with the companies, we collected data about their communications practices and used the data to identify possible areas for improvement, and overall, suggest recommendations for the company to implement.
Causeway as an organization can be classified as level two, “planned”, on the practice maturity scale (Coffman 2004). This means that communication practices within Causeway are purposefully implemented rather than on a strictly need basis. Although, these practices do not occur very regularly and are only performed by one person, the communications manager. Causeway’s two main forms of communication are its website and posters. The website is used often although is not updated regularly, and the posters are made and put up around neighborhoods on a regular basis. Causeway also uses social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter to raise awareness, share photos and make announcements to a wider audience.The reason Causeway would not be classified as “institutionalized”, level three is because its communications efforts do not spread across the organization or outside the organization. As well, various communications strategies have not been weighed in terms of importance in order to choose the best one to fulfill the organization’s mandates. Although practices are planned, they do not run through the organization as part of its “fabric” (Coffman 2004). In addition, thecommunications manager is the only one implementing and evaluating communications practices with little input from others in the team.
Using the strategic communications audit matrix
Appendix
Cycle salvation: Tim and Brianna
Causeway & krackers: ailya
Identifying Possible Levels of Practice: Cycle Salvation
Similar to Causeway, Cycle Salvation can be an organization which is considered under the planned phrase. Under the planned phrase, Cycle Salvation relies on the manager as the focus on communication in the company. The manager of Cycle Salvation has taken up the role of being the foundation of communication for the organization. In some ways this has benefited Cycle Salvation thus far because the outcomes of communication has been more controlled. Communication strategy of Cycle Salvation is heavily dependent on Causeway and stated that Causeway has taken up the responsibility of many of the communication. The funding and the hiring of the employees for Cycle Salvation is comes from Causeway.Cycle Salvation uses their website and facebook as forms of communication. However, the website and facebook page is not updated constantly. As a result, Cycle Salvation has heavily focused on word of mouth and advertisements (such as posters and stickers) to promote the organization. Furthermore, many of the advertisements occurring only during their peak season and as a reflection, their clientele is a reflection of the promotion that they do. The reason, Cycle Salvation is categorized at level two is because their form of communication has only become a main focus during their in season. Likewise, Cycle Salvation depends on Causeway to promote the organization or the communication is often left into the hands of the manager of Cycle Salvation.
With regards to strategy, Cycle Salvation has not institutionalized communications practices. The vision and messages of the business are more deliberate than reactive. Resources are allocated to the vision, mostly, in making the business sustainable and employing those who need training. However, communications goals are not a part of any strategy, and audiences are not clearly identified. In regards to messengers and mechanisms, they are at the ad hoc level; Paul is the main messenger, and others pick up the slack when he has been busy. Mechanisms are used reactively, when there is time. The context and competition, and the businesses overall place in the community, is well known and informs practices.
Cycle Salvation has built very valuable partnerships that help to promote the business, do work on behalf of the business (in regards to taking in donations), and take care of financial and administrative concerns. However materials are used and outreach performed on an ad hoc basis, given constraints on time and resources. Messengers are not specifically trained with key messages on behalf of the organization, and not kind of measuring or evaluation of the effectiveness of current communications practices is performed.
The head mechanic, Paul Wylie, understands the value of communications practices, and holds them as long term goals. However, time and resources are currently real constraints to these practices. Therefore, resources are not earmarked specifically for communications practices, and practices are not integrated throughout the organization or performed at all levels of staff.
Given the available resources and current goals of Cycle Salvation (having to do with sustainability) it would be unreasonable to ask this organization to allocate any more resources to strategic communications practices. It also seems unwarranted given that Paul told us, “we haven’t had trouble selling bikes, but we have had a problem trying to get enough inventory [through donations] come February, March.” Paul told us that the greatest limitation to his communicating with target audiences was time. However, the business has valuable partnerships that it should use to help plan messages and conduct steady outreach in preparation for this period of low inventory. This may help to move the company more quickly towards sustainability; at which point it can and should earmark resources for communications practice, involve and hire staff devoted to communications practices and messages, and use social media to conduct steady outreach on behalf of the organization. It also will be necessary at this point to identify a target audience, which there seems to be, even if that audience is broad. When communications practices are part of an overall strategy and plan, it will then be necessary to measure the success of those practices to improve their performance.
Through the evaluation of Causeway Work Center through Julia Coffman’s article, our group was able to come up with some recommendations in which Causeway as a whole could be more strategic. It was mentioned by Luanne, the director of Communications, that one labour intensive job she has avoided doing has been a press release. Luanne suggested that a press release is one way in which Causeway could improve their communications as they are losing city funders. She saw this as a gap that is not being tended to however mentioned that the effort of creating a press release may not outweigh the benefits that come from it. After auditing and evaluating the company, our group suggests that the idea of a press release will overall bring more beneficial gain to the communications side of the company and it is worth pursuing. However this is realistically hard to organize as Causeway is such a small organization and they need to be careful as to where they spend their time and resources. With that said, we feel that Causeway could bring the idea of a press release online and focus this as an integral part of their marketing and communications plan. In doing so it would generate publicity around Causeway as buzz words mentioned in their press release will come up in search engines and other online networks. The press release would be created through use of trusted online distribution system such as Canada Newswire (CNW) or Business Wire that would disseminate the press release and have the ability to include geographic restrictions to where the release will be displayed to. The cost is either based per release or per words of press release. We see the most beneficial successes to outline and publish would be the start of the new entrepreneur program as well as outlining what Causeway is in more detail using certain buzz words to generate attraction to the release in the first place. Some buzz words that would be beneficial to outline are corporate sponsorship and philanthropy as Causeway would fit into this characteristic many businesses are looking for. This would be beneficial in reaching to a larger audience of donors as well as companies looking for employment. The idea of an online press release is feasible for Causeway by either hiring an external company to conduct their press releases. Causeway has many stories that are worth sending out in a press release instead of waiting for local media coverage to cover it on their networks. Their online press release could outline anything from stating their mission statement and goals which come directly from the source, development of new programs, any awards or accomplishments achieved which show current and potential donors where their money is going and what good is coming out of it. As Causeway focuses their website as one of the main platforms, the press release could be featured on their website to potentially take over the “Latest News” tab that is already being kept up to date.
http://www.canadaone.com/promote/newsrelease5.html
http://cnw.en.mediaroom.com/allservices
Another recommendation to make Causeway conduct their communications more strategically would be to hold bi montly meetings between Causeway workers and the managers of each social enterprise. In conducting the interview and visiting the office, it is evident that the Causeway community is so close nit and there is communication between all employees there. However, our group feels it would be beneficial to hold meetings to gather managers of each social enterprise as well as the core workers of the larger Causeway branch in specifically discussing their communication efforts, what can be done, and what needs to be improved. She mentioned that each manager takes care of the majority of their communication and marketing efforts however it would be beneficial for them to share insights and ideas on how they are conducting their communication. It would be a good way to get reassurance that everyone is on the same page.
Based on our strategic audit and the areas of improvement we have come to some overall decisions on what we think Causeway should implement immediately. Out of all of our areas of improvement, we believe Causeway would benefit the most from a press release. Outlined in Appendix (A), Causeway would benefit from a press release because it would improve the company’s communication and increase funding. Since philanthropy is an important characteristic of the Causeway company, our press release highlights Causeway’s objectives of transforming lives and fueling the development of Ottawa’s economic through “integrated network of innovative training and employment programs, one-on-one support, cross-sector partnerships and by creating socially minded businesses” (Causeway). Our press release gives Causeway’s mission statement and goals, the development of introducing a new entrepreneur program, links to donations and social media and a “Latest News” tab with regular up-to-date news.
Our second recommendation that we are implementing for Causeway is creating a space and time bi-monthly in which members of the four Causeway management team can meet to discuss marketing and communications efforts. Within these meetings each manager would be responsible for bringing ideas to brainstorm ideas of communications that Luanne can then use to create communications material.
We finally believe that Causeway would benefit from a website redesign. The Causeway website is a main communication outlet for the company. Luanne noted that a reason for not changing the website was due to funding however, using their own programs as a source of labor may benefit the company. We are proposing Causeway implement an entrepreneur or co-op program for College or University students in the Ottawa area in communications that are tech-savvy.
While researching Causeway and conducting our interviews, there were many things that we discovered that changed our perspective of the organization from when we first looked at it. One very notable discovery was that despite how important Causeway is for many people, the organization struggles with strategic communication, as it is limited in resources. This limits its reach and effectiveness which is a shame considering how noble their work is. We did not expect the organization to be so small and for there to be only one person handling all of the organization’s communications efforts. This really made us appreciate social enterprises and non-profits even more because organizations such as Causeway have limited resources in terms of manpower and funding and yet they deliver extraordinary services.Another discovery we had was Causeway’s lack of media attention and how this really hindered the organization. It’s difficult for organizations like Causeway because they need to frame themselves to the media in a way that is attractive and will make for good stories to be picked up by journalists. This is a problem that we as a group did not initially foresee in terms of communication strategies. The communication manager of Causeway told us that she would often have to leverage “sob stories” in order for the organization to receive even a little bit of media coverage. This is an issue we tried to help with through our press release example and hope it will help the organization to further its efforts with exposure within the media.
When conducting the interview with Cycle Salvation, the lack of communication was apparent. Cycle Salvation had succeeded in surviving a niche market heavily relying on their advertisements and word of mouth. It was surprising that the communication for the organization was not the main focus on the organization or not heavily focused on. This is result of being limited in funding and not being able to hire the staff who can really promote Cycle Salvation to the Ottawa community. The relationship between Causeway and Cycle Salvation is not evident through the communication of both organizations. Causeway have more of a role within Cycle Salvation by taking up most of the communication strategies and hiring the staff in Cycle Salvation and the hiring process is a great reflection and discovery mentioned within our interview with Causeway. Likewise, the relationship between re-cycles and Cycle Salvation was a discovery during our interview. Re-cycles and Cycle Salvation in many ways depend on each other to prosper within this niche market. They share the renting space and supplies. We found it interesting that Cycle Salvation and Re-Cycles collaborate in order to have the same goal.Another discovery that was noticed by the team is that Cycle Salvation does have a family feel environment. The clients who walk in and interact with the staff feel welcome and love. It is evident that the staff enjoy working with each other and working with their clientele to match their needs and demands. One will not be able to tell of the comfortable environment by looking at the building design, however, Cycle Salvation through their staff has ensured thatevery person feels welcome as they walked through their door. It was shocking, that the organization does not use that as a focal point within their communication and promotions.
