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Member Update (MU06-01)

Member Pipeline - Member Services & Information - Update (MU06-01)

To: Members & Affiliates
From: National Office
Date: January 10, 2006
Subject: 2006 PUBLIC RELATIONS SURVEY
Reference: MU 06-01

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Action Please By:
 January 27, 2006

NACWA Urges Members to Complete Online Survey on Public Relations, Outreach Capabilities
NACWA’s Communications and Public Relations (PR) Committee requests the membership’s participation in a critical survey, which can be completed online through CleanWater Central™ (www.cleanwatercentral.org). This online survey is the product of several meetings of the PR Committee and a consensus view that NACWA must play a central role in gathering and analyzing data related to its public agency members’ PR capabilities. NACWA would also like to share local agency PR challenges and successes among its members to improve all agencies’, and the Association’s, outreach efforts. NACWA urges members to complete the online survey by Friday, January 27, 2006. We recommend that an individual directly involved in your PR efforts complete this survey.

The compilation of this information is critical in light of wastewater industry trends reflecting an increased focus on communications at both the local and national levels. Whether clean water agencies are seeking public support for costly infrastructure upgrades, broadly educating their communities about the vital daily services they provide, or seeking state and/or federal regulatory or legislative support for targeted initiatives — carefully constructed messages and outreach campaigns are becoming increasingly common and necessary to ensure success.

PR Survey to Result in Strategic Communications White Paper
The ultimate goal of the PR survey is to create a white paper based on the responses from NACWA’s membership. This white paper will offer data on the outreach capabilities of the clean water community and provide insight into the PR challenges utilities face in obtaining positive media attention and in organizing an active base of ratepayers/community allies. Most significantly, however, the response to the PR survey will offer examples and analysis of the
commonalities of tried and proven methods and initiatives resulting in positive media, community and policy-maker support which will be incorporated in the white paper.

 CleanWater Central™, the Information Resource for the Clean Water Community
CleanWater Central™ is an Internet database, developed by NACWA and the Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF), designed to meet the needs of the clean water community by providing a wide variety of utility-specific statistical information in an easy to use format. The site contains baseline data for hundreds of wastewater agencies and treatment facilities including: agency services, treatment processes used, service area descriptions, influent/effluent flows, staffing data, and biosolids management methods. CleanWater Central™ also includes a powerful data analysis and querying tool. Users can select from over 70 different prepared reports that analyze and summarize agency or facility profile data which is summarized in real-time and displayed as simple statistics or customized graphs.

If your utility is not a subscriber of CleanWater Central™ and would like to receive full access to the site free of charge, simply visit www.cleanwatercentral.org and complete the online baseline survey by clicking on the ‘Subscribe’ link. NACWA also encourages subscribers to review their utility data currently included in the database and make any necessary updates to continue to receive the benefits of CleanWater Central™.

The PR survey can be completed online through CleanWater Central™ (www.cleanwatercentral.org). To access the survey, simply enter the “private subscriber’s area”, log in with your agency’s NACWA username and password, click on “Surveys” on the tool bar and click on the “2006 NACWA Public Relations Survey” link. You can obtain your Agency’s username and password by contacting Gunnar Gehrmann at NACWA’s National Office at 202/833-9384 or ggehrmann@nacwa.org.

NACWA encourages your utility to become an active member of the Communications & Public Relations Committee and help shape the messages that will maximize the clean water community’s success on priority water quality issues. If you would like to become a member of the Communications & Public Relations Committee, or have any questions regarding the survey, please contact NACWA’s Manager of Communications, John Thibodeau, at jthibodeau@nacwa.org or at 202/296-9836. All member responses will be kept confidential.

The Association would like to thank the members of the PR Committee for their work in creating the survey and express its appreciation to Committee Chair, Jamie Samons, Public Affairs Manager for the Narragansett Bay Commission, Providence, R.I., and Vice Chair, Chris Kosinski, Public Affairs Officer for the Anchorage Water & Wastewater Utility, Anchorage, Alaska, in particular. We look forward to your responses to this important survey.