What
we do.
Crisis Communications
& Rapid Response
The engagement most clients meet us through, and the one we are built for.
A crisis is not a communications event. It is an institutional stress test that happens to be conducted in the public eye. Our first job is to assess the situation and establish what is true, what the organization needs, and what the discourse can accept.
We embed with leadership immediately and assume your communications posture so your team can command the operational response. We draft what goes out, prepare the people who deliver it, manage inbound press, coordinate with your legal counsel, and hold the line through the second and third waves that most organizations have never planned for.
We will tell you what to say, when to say it, when to say less, when to say more, when to apologize, and when to say nothing at all.
What we deliver
- Immediate situational assessment and communications command structure
- Holding statements, press releases, and prepared Q&A responses
- Spokesperson selection, preparation, training, and live support
- Press conference staging and management
- Coordination protocols for legal counsel, HR, and operations
- Internal and external communications for members, employees, and customers
- Stakeholder and partner notification sequencing
- Monitoring, evaluation, and second-wave adjustments
- Written after-action review and standing crisis plan
Strategic Messaging
& Positioning
What you say when nothing is on fire determines how much you are believed when something is.
Most organizations do not have a message problem. They have twelve messages, none of them written down, each held by a different person who is certain theirs is the official one. The result is an institution that sounds uncertain, unprepared, and unequal to the demands of its public.
We build strategic message architecture: core positions, the proof behind them, and a communications process that delivers the message consistently, everywhere it needs to land. Then we help you install it through leadership, staff, members, and partners until the whole organization is on the same page, telling the same truth, every time.
Where the stakes justify it, we test the language before you commit to it, rather than repairing it after.
What we deliver
- Strategic communications planning
- Message architecture and narrative building
- Strategic positioning
- Audience research, message development, and framing
- Brand identity, naming, and visual guides
- Communications audits and channel strategy
- Message discipline training for leadership and staff
- Ongoing evaluation, measurement, and plan adjustments
Public Affairs
& Legislative Strategy
Campaigns designed to move policy, not merely comment on it.
Policy outcomes are rarely decided by whoever is most correct. They are decided by whoever has assembled the more credible coalition, anticipated the procedural chokepoints, and made it easier for a decision-maker to say yes than to say no.
We design and run those campaigns. That means coalition construction and third-party validators, member and grassroots mobilization, earned and paid pressure applied where it registers, testimony and hearing preparation, and the unglamorous sequencing work that determines whether a bill, a budget line, a contract award, or an ordinance survives its own process.
We work at every level of government, and we are candid about the difference. A county commission is not a statehouse, and neither one is Congress.
What we deliver
- Legislative and regulatory campaign strategy
- Coalition construction and third-party validator recruitment
- Access to professional embedded lobbyists
- Grasstops and grassroots mobilization programs
- Testimony preparation and hearing-day management
- Earned media and editorial-board strategy
- Targeted paid advocacy and issue advertising
- Ballot measure, referendum, and initiative communications
- Labor contract and negotiation communications strategy
Reputation Defense
& Issue Management
Some issues do not resolve in a news cycle. They resolve in a fiscal year, or a court term, or an election.
Sustained, organized pressure: from an advocacy group, a plaintiff’s firm, a competitor, a political opponent, or a reporter who has decided you are a beat. It requires a different discipline than a crisis. Speed matters less. Consistency matters enormously.
We build long-horizon defense programs for institutions and for the individuals who lead them: research and counter-research, structured monitoring, editorial engagement, search and social remediation, and a steady drumbeat of substantive proof that answers the critique on the merits rather than feeding it.
Where the criticism is fair, we will tell you that too, and help you fix the underlying thing. Defending an indefensible position is the fastest way we know to lose a client’s credibility along with our own.
What we deliver
- Strategic communications assessment
- Vulnerability and self-opposition research
- Counter-research on organized critics and groups
- Structured media, social media, and stakeholder monitoring
- Earned media and editorial engagement strategy
- Executive and principal reputation management
- Board, funder, and internal and external membership communications
Research, Polling
& Message Testing
Confidence is never a substitute for evidence and data.
When it matters most, decisions should rest on the strongest evidence and the best data available, paired with sound judgment and the right experience. We size the research to the decision in front of you, and to the crisis at hand.
Sometimes that is a full survey instrument with cross-tabs and a modeled electorate. Sometimes it is a small set of focus groups. Sometimes it is structured one-on-one stakeholder interviews, inside the organization or with key external partners.
What we deliver is never just a deck. It is a recommendation you can act on, a plan you can put in motion, and reasoning shown clearly enough to stand behind in the room where the decision gets made.
What we deliver
- Custom survey research design, fielding, and analysis
- In-person focus groups and message testing
- One-on-one stakeholder interviews
- Advertising and creative testing
- Membership and internal audience research
- Sentiment analysis and media landscape audits
Procurement, RFP
& Public-Sector Growth
Government does not always buy the best product. It buys the least risky decision, and the trusted relationship behind it.
Companies that sell into the public sector routinely lose contracts they should have won, because the proposal answered the specification while the evaluation answered a different question. We work to make sure your positioning survives the procurement officer, the public records request, and the next election cycle.
We build key proposal narratives, past-performance framing, and pilot program designs that produce definitive, referenceable outcomes, leveraging our network of relationships and experience.
We also work the other side of the conversation, helping public agencies write solicitations that attract serious respondents and communicate awards in a way that survives public scrutiny and modern skepticism.
What we deliver
- Public-sector positioning and category strategy
- Capture strategy and pre-solicitation relationship building
- RFP and proposal narrative development
- Past-performance and case-study architecture
- Pilot program design and outcome documentation
- Reference and validator recruitment
- Award announcement and stakeholder communications
- Agency-side solicitation and award communications support
Tell us what
you are
facing.
Initial conversations are confidential and direct with a partner. If we are not the right firm for your situation, we will say so and point you somewhere better. If we are, you will have a scope and a number quickly.
Active crisis? Complete the form and flag it urgent. We will do our best to respond the same day, including weekends.