The program went on a brief hiatus when the City’s project manager left, and it resumed in 2017 when the new Water Resources Department Manager took over the initiative. The first step was to tailor the universal water smart logo to suit Prescott’s needs. The YPMO team researched the program to make sure design changes wouldn’t infringe on copyrights or trademarks. They got the go-ahead and proceeded to customize the design.

Next, the team developed the “Education Drop by Drop” program, which involved another logo and 24 newsletter templates for 2018 and 2019.

For the newsletters, City staff provided extensive water-related information and history, and  the YPMO team culled through it to lay out the publication.

YPMO also captured snippets from newsletter content and developed monthly radio scripts fact sheets, social media posts, and presentations to educate Prescott’s residents and businesses about water history and issues. The team provided digital ad signage for 12 water smart presentations at the library as well as a water rebate brochure. The extensive publicity work was completed in three-month segments over the two years.

This project was outside of the ordinary infrastructure communications services that YPMO provides, and exposed the team to a broader perspective of infrastructure public relations. In the end, they’re skilled at creative publishing and graphic design, repurposing information, and working efficiently on small-budget municipal communication projects.

“Being an educational program, the project gave us the ability to venture from our usual work and get creative,” says Maya Hall, PI Specialist. “The project allowed us to be more creative and work with different mediums such as radio and newspaper advertisements.”