Stormwater Public Outreach: Evaluation

From Water Wiki

NC DENR has developed several guidance documents that deal with public outreach campaigns for stormwater.  It is highly recommended that permittees figure out the system of metrics that will be used to report on their campaign while in the PLANNING stages of the campaign.  Sales representatives for media outlets can customize their proposals to help permittees meet their outreach goals. 

Via a Section 319 grant, the NC Clean Water Education Partnership is researching how local governments subject to Phase II and NSW Stormwater Outreach requirements can most efficiently and effectively evaluate mass media outreach campaigns.  Our project focuses specifically on radio campaign, television campaign, and website evaluation for stormwater outreach. 

In conjunction with East Carolina University's Center for Survey Reseach, CWEP conducted primary research to evaluate the effectiveness of its stormwater mass media outreach campaigns.

1. To establish a "baseline level of awareness," data from the 2005 DENR Survey of Knowledge, Attitude, and Behaviors was extracted for ZIP codes that lie within CWEP jurisdictions. 
   
2. An extra-heavy Spring television campaign was conducted using grant funds and CWEP funds.
   
3. CWEP conducted a  Summer radio campaign.
   
4. CWEP conducted a Fall television campaign.
   
5. The CWEP website was maintained throughout.
   
6. ECU conducted a post-campaign survey on the same ZIP codes using phone and mail survey instruments, and prepared a report summarizing statistically significant differences between pre-campaign and post-campaign data. 
   
7. CWEP also maintained a web poll on its website asking visitors what brought them to the web site.
   

Reports on the surveys as well as Guidance for Local Governments on Using Mass Media for Stormwater Outreach are available on the CWEP website.

CWEP has also started an online discussion forum for collaboration on topics relating to mass media outreach and its evaluation.  Anyone can browse the forum or register to participate. 

For more information, please contact:
Sarah Bruce, CWEP Coordinator
sbruce at tjcog dot org
919-558-9343