Greater Richmond Continuum of Care

Challenge: The Greater Richmond Continuum of Care (GRCoC) is the Richmond region’s coordinated and collaborative network of homeless service providers. The network includes 34 local, mission-driven agencies. Given the complexity of homelessness services and the pernicious stereotypes about individuals and families pushed into homelessness, clear and concise messages from all partner agencies is crucial to ensure key audiences understand the reality around homelessness and how the region is successfully and compassionately responding.

Solution: Homeward, the planning agency for the GRCoC, recognized the need for consistent messages from partner agencies to ensure accurate and informative details are shared with local leaders, governments, funders, volunteers, supporters, and others. Homeward tasked Gray Ryan Communications with developing a 60-minute training session to educate GRCoC agencies about the value of strategic messages and how to effectively leverage consistent messages about the GRCoC’s work.

Bottom Line: Gray Ryan Communications developed a dynamic training session for partner agencies and has provided annual updates for all agencies. The session includes best practices, recommended messages, and tangible implementation tips. Additionally, Gray Ryan Communications crafted a toolkit exclusively for partner agencies to use in their own efforts. Since the training sessions launched, we’ve seen a 50% increase in consistent messaging from GRCoC partners. There also has been a shift in conversations around homelessness by focusing on GRCoC messages that are person-centered, highlight the complex work that’s happening, and reinforces the need to invest in proven solutions.