Oregon MESA is a non-profit organization that supports a pre-college academic program in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math.) They came to Spot Color Marketing for public relations support.
Oregon MESA: Empowering Students Through STEM
Overview
Oregon MESA is a chapter of MESA USA, a non-profit organization that supports a pre-college academic program in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) for students all over Oregon and the U.S. MESA implements chapters in middle and high school by training teachers to run after-school programs to increase students’ interest and involvement in STEM subjects.
MESA seeks to break the cycle of poverty and fill the STEM pipeline with underserved youth students.
Objective
Oregon MESA came to Spot Color for help with boosting positive awareness of the fantastic work that they do. They were looking for particular support with making the public aware of their two signature events – National MESA Day and the MESA National Engineering and Design Competition. Their goal was to encourage influential figures in government and academia to attend these events, connect their work with the National MESA organization, and to participate in current conversations about STEM education.
Most importantly they wanted to share the story of educational empowerment, earn thought leadership and place themselves in a better position with future donors and policy-makers.
Challenge
Messages about the amazing work that MESA does with the youth of Oregon were getting lost in a community saturated with non-profits. They needed to find a way for their message to stand out above the fray and appeal to potential partners, supporters and community activists.
Strategy
Spot Color developed and implemented a multi-layered public relations and marketing strategy to accomplish Oregon MESA’s objectives.
Spot Color connected with resources at local media organizations and facilitated the publication of a number of photo essays that gave a fantastic visual picture of Oregon MESA’s work. We composed press releases that communicated Oregon MESA’s mission, key partner and event stories. We ensured that this press release was distributed to key regional editors and journalist research databases.
We helped Oregon MESA develop thought leadership by working with them to create a video to use in future fundraising that leveraged and highlighted their partnerships.
Results
Together, Spot Color and Oregon MESA generated an enormous amount of interest in and support for their events. We secured 148,443,270 total media impressions, made the community more aware of their work and we were ecstatic to contribute to the successful implementation of their mission.
