It All Adds Up To Cleaner Air - Success Stories - West Michigan Shoreline Regional Development Commission

West Michigan Shoreline Regional Development Commission

When smog moved through the air across Lake Michigan, causing region-wide air-quality problems, the West Michigan Shoreline Regional Development Commission (WMSRDC)—a metropolitan planning organization (MPO) in Muskegon County—pushed back with a powerful regional coalition and creative use of the It All Adds Up to Cleaner Air messages and materials.

This It All Adds Up participant faces a particularly challenging dilemma—literally. Situated on the edge of Lake Michigan, residents are hit head-on with a concentrated haze of dirty air, the worst of it creeping ashore during the hot summer months. "Most of our air pollution is coming from across Lake Michigan from such areas as Chicago; Milwaukee; and Gary, Indiana," explains Amy Haack, air quality program manager at WMSRDC. "The pollution just bakes under the sun as it crosses the lake, and because we're located right at the shoreline, it hits us first and hardest."

They're not alone. Transported pollution is a common frustration for many communities across the United States, but pointing fingers across the water often isn't an effective solution. Taking action at home is. However, with a limited budget for air quality outreach and education, there didn't seem to be enough money to cover the widespread initiative WMSRDC envisioned.

Building Partnerships: Fusing Dollars and Sense to Achieve Cleaner Air

That's when WMSRDC turned to their neighbors—other MPOs in the area—for a brainstorm. After all, they figured, nearby MPOs must also have been struggling with the same problem. They were right. As a result, in 1995, the West Michigan Clean Air Coalition (WMCAC) was born—the start of a solid and enduring partnership between WMSRDC and two neighboring Michigan MPOs, the Macatawa Area Coordinating Council and the Grand Valley Met Council, as well as dozens of local businesses, nonprofits, and governmental agencies. The members of the partnership today all pitch in to deliver premium air quality education and public outreach to thousands of residents across several counties.

The secret to their success, Amy said, is straightforward. They use resources that are free and readily available, including the materials and messages from It All Adds Up, and share money and ideas to achieve the same goal. "We each receive separate CMAQ funding, which we decided to combine so we could duplicate more marketing materials at lower cost and buy more radio and TV advertising time," Amy said. "Plus we share our talents—some of us are better fundraisers, some of us are better copywriters, etc. We each have something unique to bring to the table." Grand Valley Met Council has the biggest purse, so they contribute the largest share (58%) for outreach materials and activities. "We decided that each MPO should pay a percentage based on the population it covers within our three-county region," Amy explained, adding that WMSRDC contributes 23% to the budget and Macataw, the smallest of the three, chips in 19%. "Once this was decided, it became the rule that each MPO would receive a corresponding percentage of the marketing materials. So, if we order 1,000 notepads, Grand Valley gets 580 of them."

The group's funding is also increased or offset through corporate and government sponsorships—another upshot of having joined forces.

No Problem, It's a Done Deal

Blending their separate partner lists gives the team the megaphone they were seeking in order to trumpet clean air messages simultaneously across the region. "This ensures that we are sending out consistent messages. Repetition is key," said Amy, noting the success they've achieved in getting employers to send their staff e-mails, paycheck stuffers, and newsletters with It All Adds Up quizzes, tips, and Flash animations. Clean air display tables are commonplace in lobbies, lunchrooms, auditoriums, grocery stores and at street fairs and concerts where identical posters hang, clean air games are played, and promotional items and It All Adds Up tip cards are distributed. "Going to where people already are is much less time consuming and much more cost effective than trying to attract them to you," Amy said. The team also initiated a clean air placemat campaign at some local restaurants.

Lou Pocalujka, a senior environmental planner at Consumers Energy, Michigan's chief public utility company, is a coalition partner. As an environmental expert, he was invited to help develop strategies to improve air quality in Michigan; his company also disseminates the It All Adds Up Simple Steps to employees via its vast intranet system. "Because the steps are voluntary and easy to do, they're easy to introduce. Telling people what to do is less effective … it makes it difficult to get people to take positive action," Lou said. (Gassing up company vehicles and mowing grass when it's cool is, however, company policy.) "We just worked at it with a lot of repetition and we think it's catching on. We hear people saying they like doing something small that can make a difference."

Amy employs the same theory to recruit new air quality partners. "If you ask an organization to do just a little, you'll generally get a good response; if you ask them to do a lot, you'll get a negative response from most." Her team persuaded some employers to designate parking spots for their carpoolers and also succeeded in getting the local bus company to apply for CMAQ funding last summer so it could offer free rides on Ozone Action days. "The program was extremely successful," said Jennifer Kalczuk, external relations manager at the Rapid, the public transportation company that participated. "By the end of the season, our ridership increased 30%." Jennifer said $68,000 in CMAQ money covered the cost, including lost revenue for the 10 days the fare was waived, and they even noted an increase in ridership after ozone season. "Between November 2004 and November 2005, ridership increased more than 18 percent," she said.

Mining the Exchange for Low-Cost Ideas

Last summer's door hanger campaign was another success. "I got that idea from the It All Adds Up to Cleaner Air Exchange and wanted to do the same thing," Amy said. "I was looking for something low-cost and this seemed such an inexpensive way to go, so I called the air quality outreach coordinator in Portland and we talked about how she did it." Amy paid $1,000 for three sets of durable paper door hangers (6,000 total) featuring the It All Adds Up clean air tips, stats, and the It All Adds Up tagline and hired two interns from a local college to place them on the doors of residences in a specified neighborhood over the course of three weeks. Banking on repetition to drive the message home, the final hanger included a mail-in survey about air quality and a chance to win a $50 gift certificate. She also customized a press release from It All Adds Up about the program, which resulted in generous newspaper coverage. "The It All Adds Up Web site is a great place to find inspiration for new projects," Amy said. "I tell everyone about it. It's a great resource."

What's the Net Result?

Partnering also allows the team to designate $8,000 toward other essential work—notably a public awareness survey, which is faithfully conducted every two years with the help of a nearby private university. "We place great value on these surveys and have found them to be extremely useful when determining where we are falling short and where we are making the most impact," Amy said. "For example, we found out that few people knew about the clean air benefits of stopping at the click, or mowing and gassing up when it's cooler, but that most were willing to start doing it because it's easy and convenient." The latest survey results show that public awareness about the It All Adds Up simple steps climbed from 78% to 85%.

The survey results also provided solid evidence of where the group needed to improve, leading them to reexamine how the advertising budget was spent. Were they allocating the funds in the best possible way? The answer, they discovered, was not quite. "People were familiar with our television messages (an adaptation of the It All Adds Up trip chaining commercial and local meteorologists sharing clean air tips during weather reports), but not too many had heard our radio ads," Amy admitted. "We had spent our entire radio budget on one major radio network and, although the ads aired on their three affiliate stations, we couldn't afford to run them that often." This time they decided to spread the budget across three major radio stations so the ads would be heard on three times as many affiliates. "That move gave us more exposure for the same money!" Sounds simple, but without that hard survey data in front of them, the team might not have made the connection.

Making a New Radio Commercial

To get started on the new venture, the team spared themselves time and expense by using a free radio script from It All Adds Up, which they tweaked and enhanced with a little song and dance: a playful honky-tonk tune that petitioned listeners to "do their share for cleaner air." The ad encouraged alternate modes of transportation and mowing grass on cool days before ending with the important reminder that "It All Adds Up to Cleaner Air." Click to hear the ad.

This fun and memorable summer sing-along made people smile and tap their feet. More importantly, residents across the region were consistently reminded—in an engaging way—about the simple steps they could take to reduce traffic congestion and pollution.

Amy said the coalition looks forward to learning the results of their latest radio and door hanger efforts with the next public awareness survey. "Public awareness surveys are the quantifiers that show the program is working, which makes it easier to obtain funding." Survey results also serve as a persuasive tool to get more partners on board to spread the word. "Surveys help a program make connections with new partners," Amy said. "Show that you have a successful, evaluated program that is worth a new partner's time and effort and it almost becomes a peer pressure thing—they can't say no!"