Willamette Workforce Partnership: Communications Audit & Strategy
In collaboration with LC Strategies
Challenge
As Willamette Workforce Partnership expanded its programs across Marion, Polk, Yamhill, and Linn Counties, its communications infrastructure had not kept pace with the organization’s growth. Messaging varied widely across platforms, audiences were not clearly prioritized, and staff lacked shared tools to communicate consistently about WWP’s regional role and impact.
WWP’s website, newsletters, and digital channels no longer reflected the scale of its services, partnerships, or outcomes. Internally, staff were doing strong work but did not have a unified narrative or practical guidance for explaining how WWP fit into the broader workforce ecosystem. Externally, employers, job seekers, funders, and partners often encountered fragmented or incomplete information. WWP needed a cohesive communications strategy that could modernize its messaging, clarify audience priorities, and support long-term regional visibility.
Solution
In partnership with LC Strategies, we led a comprehensive communications audit designed to surface both strategic gaps and operational realities. This included stakeholder interviews with leadership and staff, evaluation of digital analytics, review of existing materials, and assessment of how messaging showed up across programs, platforms, and counties.
Based on these findings, we developed a two-year communications strategy with clear priorities, audience segmentation, and recommended tactics across owned, earned, and partner channels. The work also included a messaging guide and narrative framework that translated WWP’s mission into clear, accessible language for different audiences, from employers and training providers to job seekers and public partners.
To ensure the strategy was usable, not aspirational, we created a suite of customizable tools: social media templates, newsletter outlines, presentation decks, talking points, and internal guidance that staff could immediately apply. Together, these assets gave WWP a consistent voice while still allowing flexibility across programs and counties.
Results
Willamette Workforce Partnership relaunched its communications presence with a clearer identity and stronger regional coherence. The organization introduced a refreshed quarterly newsletter, strengthened consistency across social media channels, updated website messaging to better reflect impact and partnerships, and launched a public calendar highlighting trainings and events across the region.
Staff and partners gained shared language to describe WWP’s role within the workforce system, leading to clearer engagement with employers, education providers, and community organizations. The new framework positioned WWP as a more visible, data-informed leader in regional workforce development and provided a practical, sustainable roadmap to guide communications decisions over the next two years.
FAQs
What does a communications audit actually uncover?
A strong communications audit reveals how an organization’s story is being told and where it’s breaking down. It surfaces gaps between strategy and execution, identifies inconsistencies across platforms and materials, and clarifies which audiences are being reached, underserved, or unintentionally confused.
More importantly, an audit exposes the why behind communications challenges: unclear priorities, lack of shared language, outdated assumptions about audiences, or systems that rely too heavily on institutional memory. These insights create a foundation for building messaging, tools, and strategies that are not only clearer, but easier to sustain over time.
Why is a communications audit important before developing a new strategy?
Without an audit, communications strategies often treat symptoms instead of root causes. An audit creates a shared understanding of what’s working, what’s outdated, and what’s missing, allowing future investments in messaging, design, and outreach to be focused, efficient, and grounded in reality. It ensures that strategy is built on evidence rather than assumptions.
How do you prioritize audiences when an organization serves many groups?
We start with the organization’s strategic plan and goals: what outcomes are you trying to drive in the next 12–24 months, and who has to understand, support, or act for those outcomes to happen? From there, we map audiences by function, service users, funding and oversight entities, implementation partners, and community stakeholders prioritizing based on the decisions they influence and the communications they require.
For publicly funded organizations, prioritization is also shaped by clear obligations: communicating accessibility and impact to program participants, demonstrating outcomes to funders and government partners, and equipping frontline staff and partner networks with consistent, accurate language. The result is a tiered approach (primary, secondary, tertiary) that ties communications directly to mission delivery, compliance, and measurable goals, not just visibility.
Why is consistency across channels so important?
Inconsistent messaging creates confusion, weakens trust, and makes organizations harder to understand, especially across diverse regions. Consistency doesn’t mean saying the same thing everywhere; it means using shared language, values, and framing so audiences receive a coherent picture of the organization no matter where they encounter it.
How do templates and messaging guides improve day-to-day communications?
Templates and messaging guides reduce friction for staff. Instead of reinventing materials, teams have tools that make it easier to communicate clearly and accurately. This saves time, improves quality, and ensures that communications reflect shared priorities and tone.
How does this work support equity and accessibility?
This work supports equity and accessibility by making information easier to find, understand, and act on. That includes using plain language, improving readability across digital platforms, clarifying service pathways, and ensuring communications reflect how people actually access information. It also means aligning messaging with community needs so services and programs are responsive, not just available.
How do you measure success after a communications audit and plan?
Success is measured by clarity and consistency first: staff using shared language, fewer ad hoc materials, and more aligned communications across channels. Over time, success shows up in improved engagement with priority audiences, stronger partner understanding, increased participation in programs or events, and fewer misunderstandings about what the organization does and how to access its services.