Introduction
The U.S. leads the world in incarceration rates, and our feeds are often dominated by news of bad policing. It’s clear that the country needs an overhaul of the criminal justice system and policing. Luckily, that’s work that Appleseed does each and every day. Made up of a network of 18 justice centers, this organization works to fight inequality, combat discrimination and advance a fairer criminal justice system for all.
Our Objectives
Appleseed network came to Mixte Communications with a project that was simple in theory, but massive in scope: develop effective messaging that can move the needle on criminal justice reform. This feat becomes even more impressive when put within the context of Appleseed centers’ work across the U.S. and across political aisles.
The goal was to create criminal justice messaging that individual Appleseed centers could use consistently. Even though each Appleseed center operated largely autonomously, the network as a whole sought to align their messaging on criminal justice and policing in order to effect change.
So, we needed to create messaging frames that could appeal to Appleseed’s audiences in different ways. This messaging needed to be effective, adaptable and able to reach audiences across geographic, economic and political barriers.
With all of that in mind, we got to work.
The Outcome
Mixte started with the basics: research, research, research. Through a comprehensive media scan, thorough background research of polling information and news stories and interviews with Appleseed justice centers on the ground, we put together a landscape analysis detailing how people, policymakers and media were talking about criminal justice reform at the time.
From there, we took our findings and worked with Appleseed to put them to the test through focus groups and real-world message testing. The results challenged some of our assumptions and solidified others, but the data was thorough enough for us to refine our focal points for messaging themes.
It was at this point that we realized just leaving Appleseed with some messaging themes and recommendations wasn’t going to be enough. We needed to build the organization’s capacity while meeting each center where they were at based on their individual communications bandwidth. So, we took all of our work thus far and:
- Created a communications playbook that included exhaustive details on each messaging themes and step-by-step instructions on a wide range of communications activities
- Offered communications recommendations in a “choose your own adventure” approach that each center could adapt based on their capacity
- Hosted biweekly office hours to address any issues, refine our overall approach and help each center hit all of their communications goals
- Provided one-on-one support to Appleseed centers to address any communications snags they were hitting
The project with the Appleseed Network was a yearlong endeavor and took us down paths we had never walked before, but the result was a comprehensive communications analysis and strategy that could serve these justice centers for years to come.
