Utility Communication Resource Library
This suite of resources is designed to help the clean water sector communicate its value clearly and consistently, and help utilities convey their importance in their communities to customers, political leaders, and stakeholders.
For the best viewing experience, please use the desktop version.
ABOUT THE
NACWA Communications Initiative
Public clean water utilities face a paradox: the services they provide are essential to every person, business, and community they serve, yet they are largely taken for granted.
The systems that deliver wastewater and stormwater services are largely invisible and underground, and they take away something we don’t want rather than delivering something we actively seek out. When these systems do make the news, it’s almost always because something has gone wrong.
This disconnect between the value of clean water services and the public’s understanding of them has real consequences for the customers and communities utilities serve. When the public doesn’t understand the benefits of the services they depend on or why investment is necessary, it becomes harder to secure the funding needed to maintain reliable service, address aging infrastructure, keep rates affordable, or attract the workforce that keeps systems running.
Cognizant of these challenges, the Board of Directors of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) recognized the need to rethink and reshape the narrative around the public clean water sector – both at the local level and the national level. This need led to NACWA undertaking a comprehensive strategic communications initiative to help the sector communicate more clearly, consistently, and effectively with the communities they serve – and through those efforts to elevate the profile and trust of clean water utilities with their customers and communities.
This is the first time a national water sector organization has undertaken such a significant investment in communications resources. More broadly, this represents the first step in NACWA’s larger effort to raise the priority of water on a national scale and also to elevate communications to the same level as our legislative, regulatory and legal advocacy.
The systems that deliver wastewater and stormwater services are largely invisible and underground, and they take away something we don’t want rather than delivering something we actively seek out. When these systems do make the news, it’s almost always because something has gone wrong.
This disconnect between the value of clean water services and the public’s understanding of them has real consequences for the customers and communities utilities serve. When the public doesn’t understand the benefits of the services they depend on or why investment is necessary, it becomes harder to secure the funding needed to maintain reliable service, address aging infrastructure, keep rates affordable, or attract the workforce that keeps systems running.
Cognizant of these challenges, the Board of Directors of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) recognized the need to rethink and reshape the narrative around the public clean water sector – both at the local level and the national level. This need led to NACWA undertaking a comprehensive strategic communications initiative to help the sector communicate more clearly, consistently, and effectively with the communities they serve – and through those efforts to elevate the profile and trust of clean water utilities with their customers and communities.
This is the first time a national water sector organization has undertaken such a significant investment in communications resources. More broadly, this represents the first step in NACWA’s larger effort to raise the priority of water on a national scale and also to elevate communications to the same level as our legislative, regulatory and legal advocacy.
How to Use
these Materials
This website contains materials in a comprehensive communications framework to assist public clean water utilities with messaging, stakeholder management, risk and crisis communication, and also quality and measurement tools. They are designed with four objectives in mind:
- Educate: Help audiences understand the importance of the clean water sector and its needs, and the investment required to sustain them.
- Build Credibility: Position public clean water utilities as trusted sources on water issues among stakeholders and the public.
- Demonstrate Stewardship: Position utilities as trustworthy stewards of public funds in service of an essential public good.
- Counter Misinformation: Mitigate misinformation that erodes public trust and complicates policy discussions.
The materials are divided into six different categories as listed on this website. You can go through each of the categories and review all of the materials, selecting and using the ones that are most relevant to you and your utility’s needs. Or you can just go to the section that is most important to you and your utility right now.
The materials are designed to be used all together or in an a la carte manner— how you access and use them is totally up to you. And every designed piece is available in Canva and native Adobe formats for you to customize. Use the materials as delivered, adapt them to your brand, or pull the paragraphs and visuals you need. NACWA recognizes that different utilities have different abilities, capacities and protocols for communications, with some utilities having very sophisticated and mature communications programs and some having no formal communications programs at all. So how you use these materials and customize them is completely up to you and the unique needs of your utility.
The materials are designed to be used all together or in an a la carte manner— how you access and use them is totally up to you. And every designed piece is available in Canva and native Adobe formats for you to customize. Use the materials as delivered, adapt them to your brand, or pull the paragraphs and visuals you need. NACWA recognizes that different utilities have different abilities, capacities and protocols for communications, with some utilities having very sophisticated and mature communications programs and some having no formal communications programs at all. So how you use these materials and customize them is completely up to you and the unique needs of your utility.
If you are not sure exactly what resources you need and are wondering where to begin or the best way to use this framework, we suggest starting with the “Twelve Principles” in the Foundation section. This document is designed as an entry point to all of the materials to help find what you need and outline action your utility could take on communications issues, regardless of your utility size or communications resources. It also helps explain how all the different pieces relate to each other and can interact with each other. You can also look at this index document, which lists all of the various pieces of this framework and in which category/section of the website you can find them.
We hope you find these resources helpful and useful. If you have any questions about them or how to use them, please contact Rahkia Nance, NACWA’s Director of Communications. We also welcome any feedback, positive or negative, related to the materials, so please send those thoughts along too!
We hope you find these resources helpful and useful. If you have any questions about them or how to use them, please contact Rahkia Nance, NACWA’s Director of Communications. We also welcome any feedback, positive or negative, related to the materials, so please send those thoughts along too!
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