The “I Love New Bedford” Campaign Helped Broaden the Appeal of Hazard Mitigation Planning
Does this sound familiar? You’ve got a new plan or project that you need the community to comment on or an action you need them to take. So, you plan an event at City Hall or the library, invite local partner organizations to set up tables, and hope that people turn out.
And just maybe you’ve been disappointed with turnout, you’re still struggling to bring in new voices, or you want to expand beyond a one-and-done event (even if it’s annual like Earth Day)?
You. Are. Not. Alone.
Engaging every corner of the community can be challenging, especially when trying to keep people
involved through all the stages of planning and implementation.
Over the past couple of years, the City of New Bedford, Massachusetts, has been trying to spread awareness around hazard preparedness—but they faced challenges with attracting attendance to events focused on heavier topics, especially among residents from historically underrepresented neighborhoods and those who live in areas with the most extreme climate impacts.
That’s where KLA stepped in.
We partnered with New Bedford (a long-time KLA partner) to support the Community Resilience Awareness Campaign and the Prepare NB event, a fair to promote resilience and emergency preparedness throughout the community. KLA’s goal in planning for Prepare NB wasn’t just to help boost turnout—it was to plant the seed for an ongoing conversation about climate impacts and hazard preparedness that would grow far beyond just one day of fun activities.
Here’s how we did it.
People Don’t Want to Attend a “Draft Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan” Event
The City of New Bedford hired KLA to support outreach around their draft Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan. We started off by being honest with ourselves: how many people would be excited about “an event to provide feedback on the draft Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan”?
That’s a pretty tough sell, a combination of wonky words and a negative tone. Instead, we worked with the City and their partners to create a campaign that would lead with positivity and proactive thinking, shedding light on the healthy future that could result from preparedness and resilience. We embraced the theme of “I Love New Bedford” and created a campaign that encouraged residents to share what they love about the place they call home.
We kicked it off with this short video, produced specifically for sharing on social media and through email and directed people to a central website for more information.
We designed postcards with the flair of a vacation postcard, developed a social media toolkit and an online poll to ask community members what they love about New Bedford, followed by a question surrounding hazard preparedness. The goal was to connect community members through common experiences: loving the same things, living in the same place, and facing the same climate impacts.
Overall, the campaign prompted residents to start thinking about preparedness as a method of protecting the place they call home, laying the groundwork for why they should attend the Prepare NB Fair, and giving them an outlet for engagement if they could not attend.
A Chance to Make “Hazard Mitigation” More Compelling
Just because the words “Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan” aren’t compelling doesn’t mean the topic isn’t of huge importance to our communities. And for local government planning and emergency management staff, it remains a top priority. So, while we deployed the “I Love New Bedford” theme for outreach, we used the campaign as an opportunity to educate community members about hazard mitigation and how it relates to their lives and New Bedford’s future. The event itself focused on connecting the dots between hazard mitigation, emergency preparedness, and protecting the places we love, offering presentations and information to dive deeper into the hazard mitigation plan.
Make Materials Accessible
Promotional flyers for the Prepare NB fair, the I Love New Bedford postcards, and online poll were created
and printed out in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Cape Verdean Creole to ensure each key population in New Bedford had the opportunity to engage with the I Love New Bedford campaign and be notified about Prepare NB. To promote the Prepare event NB as fun, appealing, and family-friendly, we limited hazard mitigation terminology and disaster photos on the flyer and postcard, favoring images that depicted what people love want to protect about New Bedford over those showing impacts and destruction that could potentially turn folks away.
Reaching Beyond the Choir 
At the end of the day, no matter how much promotion you do, reaching beyond the choir requires boots on the ground to make face-to-face connections with community members. However, this proven approach to community engagement is time consuming and not always feasible for limited local government staff to execute . In the case of New Bedford, KLA helped the City interview and hire a Community Resilience Ambassador, Eldric Abreu, to build capacity and focus specifically on outreach and engagement.
Eldric was integral to the campaign’s goal of reaching new audiences. While gathering postcard responses and encouraging attendance at the Prepare NB event, Eldric spoke directly with residents about their hopes, fears, and ideas for the future of their neighborhoods.
“From my role as a Community Resilience Ambassador, this was one of the most rewarding events I’ve been part of,” Eldric told us. “One of the most powerful takeaways for me was seeing the pride people felt in contributing to something bigger.”
The Big Day
The Prepare NB event itself was held on April 6 from 10am-2pm at the McArthur Community Center.
Our approach for the event was to create a fun, accessible space for all ages to learn about hazard preparedness. With interactive booths, youth engagement, local vendors, free food, a photo booth, and a hazard preparedness scavenger hunt, the fair created a welcoming energy that helped lower the barrier to participation, encouraging an authentic dialogue among residents.
At the end of the campaign, more than 150 postcards were completed (and displayed at the event to show common concerns and loves). The event drew a mix of families, youth, seniors, and residents from across different neighborhoods, reaching folks who had never before engaged with city initiatives. “Several attendees expressed that this was their first interaction with climate resilience work in New Bedford,” Eldric told us. 
The New Bedford team was happy with the end result and is already planning the date for the event next year. Brain Nobrega, New Bedford’s Director of Emergency Management, thanked KLA for helping them think outside the event planning box:
"Without you, it wouldn't have happened so easily and probably would have been just a presentation in a library.”
It's too early to know the full results, but the I Love New Bedford campaign was built to be just that: a campaign and not just a tick-the-box, one-off event. The designs, materials and messaging are evergreen and can be the thread that keeps bringing the New Bedford community together to be more resilient.
Resources:
Prepare NB Website (part of their NB Resilient Dashboard)
New Bedford Hazard Mitigation Fact Sheet
KLA Blog on Street Teams/Ambassadors
KLA Blog on Equity and Climate Ambassadors
Community Resilience Ambassador job description
New Bedford Public Access video on PrepareNB
