Austin, TX. 2018-2019 | School Bond Election Campaigns
156 days. Two election cycles.
In that time, I helped successfully pass six propositions totaling $718 million worth of bonds in five different independent school districts. The passage of these bonds provided enhanced learning experiences and new recreational opportunities for over 59,000 school children and their families.
As a Communications Coordinator, it was my job to convince local voters they should approve bond propositions supporting their school district, even if it meant potentially increasing their property tax rate. I had a personal campaign success rate of 71%.
Scroll down to see examples of materials I helped develop for a PAC campaign supporting an $89 million school bond proposition in Kerrville, Texas. The Kerrville ISD community approved the bond by 67%! Voter turnout was strong with 47% voter participation.
Click the image above for more examples of social media posts from this campaign.
Social Media
For this campaign, I chose Facebook as the preferred social media platform because it was an easy, cheap and effective way to reach one of our main audiences and likely supporters—school district parents and staff. I created a content calendar, designed all graphics and wrote all copy for the entire Facebook campaign.
This page reached 320 “likes” during the 78-day campaign cycle. The highest organic reach for one post was 1,900 people. Posts averaged 64 clicks, and 56 reactions, comments and shares. A total of $106 was spent on Facebook advertisements throughout the campaign.
Click the image above for more examples of advertisements from this campaign.
Advertisements
Kerrville, Texas, has two local newspapers—Hill Country Community Journal and Kerrville Daily Times. I developed copy and helped to design a couple advertisements we chose to run during early voting and on Election Day in order to reach another one of our target audiences—voters over the age of 65. (We also used the newspaper to plug articles about the PAC, its goals, and to publish letters to the editor from our supporters.)
Additionally, I designed some Facebook advertisements to promote early voting. Those ads reached 3,551 people, garnered 501 post engagements, and received 14 link clicks.
Click the image above for more examples of collateral from this campaign.
Collateral
In order to spread the word far and wide, I helped develop some support pieces for this campaign, including emails, signage and a postcard mailed to targeted voters. I wrote the copy for all pieces, designed the emails, and helped to design the signage and postcard.
I completed this work while employed with Huckabee, Inc., a Texas-based architecture firm. With their main focus on K-12 public schools, work depends on the passage of school bond elections by local taxpayers.