Overview: The Ark, a local nonprofit serving Chicago’s Jewish community, engaged SGA to raise awareness around a $20M capital investment to renovate and grow its facility in the city’s West Rogers Park neighborhood. The project would expand the organization’s footprint by 60% and modernize the look, feel and functionality of their existing space, where they offer a range of social services, including case management, emergency financial support. medical and dental care and a community-building. The project included a significant update to the Ark’s celebrated kosher food pantry, redesigning it to mirror a grocery where people in need can “shop” for free to provide a more dignified food pantry experience.<\/p>\r\n
Objective: The client had modest goals: use the groundbreaking to further educate residents, including but not limited to its immediate neighbors and core community, about its service offerings. The Ark's initial goals were to shore up messaging for their internal stakeholders, and yet the success with media far surpassed their expectations and leveled up their initial objectives by securing external validation of their work and expansion. But to tell a compelling story, The Ark would have to overcome cultural stereotypes about the necessity of its services in the Jewish community.<\/p>\r\n
Approach: SGA helped The Ark create clear messaging around the needs, exacerbated by COVID, of 60,000 Jewish Chicagoans living in poverty, The Ark’s role in meeting that need and the importance of capital campaigns like the planned facility expansion in promoting the welfare of the local Jewish community. With that message as our foundation, we created and pitched a captivating story for TV, radio and digital news stations in and outside of the city. SGA reached out to key reporters in the weeks leading up to the groundbreaking event, leveraging recent news that Whole Foods would shutter stores in several underserved Chicago communities, leaving residents without access to healthy foods, and pointing to the important role The Ark and other service providers play in addressing that gap, then inviting reporters to learn more about the organization’s expansion plans.<\/p>\r\n
Result: In the critical week before the event, SGA secured a print story in the Chicago Sun-Times and timely segments on WBEZ-FM (NPR) and WBBM-AM (CBS) citing the groundbreaking and addressing ongoing challenges of food insecurity across Chicago’s underserved communities. Three of five local news stations sent camera crews to the event. In addition, WBBM-FM radio sent Lisa Fielding to cover the event and WGN-TV sent reporter Gaynor Hall to film a mid-day segment live from the groundbreaking. In total, the team secured 27 total media placements, including 12 unique segments\/articles and five interviews with an Ark spokesperson.<\/p>\r\n
Key Outcomes: •Two reporters and three camera crews in attendance at the groundbreaking •Feature segments on WBEZ’s Reset and Chicago Tonight •More than two dozen media placements including key messages and interviews with Ark spokespeople •Segments across media: local television, radio and print\/ online <\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>"}}