COMMUNITY RELATIONS PLANS

Whether you need to avoid NIMBY opposition to a controversial real estate project or build citizen support for it, GCA can help shift opinion and mobilize the action you need:

• Outreach Plans: Stirring up community stakeholders for the wrong reason can create more problems than you started with. GCA's research-based outreach plans lay out a clear plan of action for your team. Our strategic plans describe the likely causes of NIMBY opposition, identify persuasive messages and concessions, and detail the activities you need to turn pro-project attitudes into pro-project action.
   
• Supporter Development: It isn't enough to keep a cap on community opposition; you need visible, pro-project action that makes politicians and the public sit up and take notice. GCA identifies potential endorsers, puts together citizen coalitions, recruits witnesses, and mobilizes advocates to take action in support of your project. When you need a real groundswell of support --- witnesses, petitions, endorsements, rallies, front-door protests --- you need GCA.
   
• Outreach Implementation: GCA provides the implementation tools it takes to minimize community opposition and mobilize support, including recruitment scripts, patch-through phone banks, direct mail, letter-writing drives, neighborhood coffees, and coalition management. Depending on your needs, GCA can guide your team of professionals through the entitlement process or serve as the project's on-the-ground representative.
   
• Hostile Audience Training: Winning political and community support isn't about holding hands and singing "Kumbaya." It's about expertise, and GCA can give your team the additional tools and techniques they need to manage permitting challenges. GCA provides clients with customized communications training on handling hostile audiences, increasing credibility, selecting persuasion strategies, making sequential requests for support, and identifying, recruiting and mobilizing pro-project action.
   

Interested in more community outreach strategies and tactics? Check out:
- "Overcoming NIMBY Opposition"
- "A Strategic Plan To Avoid NIMBY Problems"
- "Getting from NIMBY to Yes"
- "In The Hot Seat: Dealing With Hostile Audiences"