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Challenge

Under President Bill Clinton, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decided to work with local communities to identify and address their environmental concerns. The EPA selected St. Louis as one of a handful of cities to test this pilot initiative. With no other directive other than to conduct meetings to find out from residents what their environmental issues were, the EPA, in conjunction with St. Louis Community College, hired Vector Communications.

Action

Vector not only conducted and executed an outreach and public relations campaign to encourage public participation in the “Listening Tour,” but we also planned twelve neighborhood meetings, a meeting solely for senior citizens and another just for young people. To encourage meaningful participation, we created a facilitation process that used the metaphor of rain to get people to identify their environmental issues.

Results

The initial meetings were so successful EPA hired Vector to develop and implement a second phase by working with two underserved St. Louis neighborhoods to create increased civic action around an environmental issue they chose. These groups subsequently received three grants to implement their programs totaling nearly $30,000. Again, EPA provided funding for Vector to conduct phase three of this initiative, which the company completed in 2002. The focus of this phase was sustainability. A group of 15 residents in the Grand Oak Hill neighborhood of south St. Louis participated in thirteen weeks of training in such areas as leadership development, asset mapping, project planning, and public engagement. At the end of the project, Vector created a training manual that EPA still uses nationwide. In addition, we produced a video for EPA officials to show to its constituents and it won two national production awards.