Public Relations Internship
South Bend Common Council & City Clerk's Office
I spent 3 months working as a public relations intern for the South Bend Common Council and City Clerk's Office during the summer of 2019. During my time there, I handled most, if not all of the public relations duties, along with a team of 3 other interns. Specifically, I handled all content creation i.e. graphic design, videography, document layout, and editorial content. I also ran all social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube) for both the Common Council and the City Clerk. I was also tasked with taking and editing pictures for the social media accounts and the website.
Graphic Design // Social Media Management // Press Releases
// Photography // Video Content // Survey Development & Analytics
Graphic Design
I designed this poster/informational handout for our City Clerk, Kareemah Fowler. In a time of great controversy and tension in South Bend, Kareemah was doing her best to bridge the gap between the government and the citizens of the city and hosted a public forum that outright addressed some of the biggest and most pressing issues in the community. I knew that the flyer would need to be as neutral as possible so as not to seem as if we were leaning one way or another and so as not to take away from the necessary information. I chose the color scheme because it had absolutely nothing to do with the city or any other organizations and designed the graphic elements based off of the nature of the actual event and not any of the content. The poster will also be used for future events that Kareemah will hold of a similar nature
I designed these posters/handouts for our City Clerk and the Common Council. During my time with the city, I was also in charge of running all social media accounts for both entities and because of that involvement, I realized that we needed to make it more known to our citizens that we actually had social media that was used as both updates for the council and the clerk but also consistently posted about what was going on the community. I created these to be posted around the building and to be handed out at events within the community to increase our following and engagement but also to showcase our local government and all of the amazing things they do.
I designed this poster and card for our City Clerk, Kareeemah Fowler when she made the decision to leave her position for another within the South Bend school corporation. We hosted an open house to send her off and needed some posters to put up around the building, as well as a card for people to sign with a farewell message for her. The change in positions was really tough for Kareemah and she wanted to make everything as positive as possible so I chose a more lighthearted, celebratory theme for the materials along with a bright but pleasing color scheme.
Social Media
Management
Responsibilities included:
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taking photos at events and of council members and city clerk to be posted
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posting about upcoming events for the council, clerk and city.
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scheduling content for weekends, off days, and in advance for events
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responding to direct messages and comments in a professional manner
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tracking metrics for growth in followers and engagement
Common Council Social Media
City Clerk Social Media
**Responsible for content from May 22 - August 9, 2019
Press Releases
I was also given the opportunity to write two press releases for the council. The first was actually an announcement concerning the hiring of the four public relations interns (of which I was one of them). The second announced the development and distribution of the South Bend Community Engagement Survey project that I, along with the other three interns headed.
Photography
Another one of my duties included taking photos at events, mainly for social media though also for future use in design and advertising. All photos shown can be found on both the Common Council and the City Clerk's social media.
Video Content
As one of our first goals, we wanted to start a video series to both increase our presence on YouTube and to get our councilmember's faces out on social media for reasons other than controversial news interviews or quick snippets from a council meeting. In these videos, I conducted a 10-15 minute interview that consisted of both more career-oriented questions but also more personal and lighthearted questions in order to humanize them. Unfortunately, it's really hard to track down councilmembers for a 15 minute interview when they work
part-time and only come into the office once a week.
**Click on the image to see each video
Survey Development, Distribution, & Analytics
As one of our final projects at the Common Council and City Clerk's Office, we were asked to develop, distribute, and present on a survey for the community. The Clerk and Council members were looking for specific feedback from residents of the city of South Bend on both what they were doing well and what they could be doing better. I, along with my three fellow interns, collaborated and developed the survey in its entirety and headed up the distribution and data collection as well. Currently, we are still collecting and analyzing the data, though our results will be coming soon.
We decided to develop five different questions, made up of a mixture of multiple choice and free response questions, with some geared towards the city as a whole, and some aimed towards the specific district that the survey-taker lived in. We also developed a Spanish version because about 1/4 of South Bend's population is Hispanic. Along with the paper version, we also made an online version that we pushed through our social media. This is actually where we got most of our data from. In distributing, we decided that we would randomly choose 100 people to mail the survey to in each of the six districts and another 150 were randomly chosen from all six districts so that ultimately, we mailed out 100 copies. We also placed drop boxes in libraries, community centers, and other government offices around the city
We collected a total of 315 responses. Here are the results:
Demographics
District Breakdown
Race Breakdown
Average Age = 48
Questions
Question 1: How well would you say you understand the roles an duties of the Common Council?
Question 2: How accessible do you feel your district's councilmember, as well as At-Large councilmembers, are?
Question 3: What do you think we are doing well in our district?
Question 4: What can we improve on in our district?
Question 5: In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge facing South Bend? What suggestions do you have to help overcome that challenge?
