Case Study: City Park Conservancy builds a community-informed master plan with The Ehrhardt Group

City Park Conservancy engages 1,950+ participants and secures 550M impressions with The Ehrhardt Group

The City Park Conservancy faced a challenge in rebuilding public trust and ensuring broad community representation for its City Park 2050 master plan. Initial outreach efforts generated interest but left participants doubting if their feedback would be used. The Ehrhardt Group was engaged for issues and crisis management to redesign this process around genuine community co-design.

The Ehrhardt Group implemented a new strategy using a local "gumbo" metaphor to frame the planning process as inclusive. They executed a campaign with interactive meetings, targeted outreach, and a plain-language communications plan. This resulted in over 1,950 participants from 50+ communities directly informing the final plan. The effort also generated nearly 160 media placements and over 550 million impressions, with coverage consistently describing the process as transparent and inclusive.

City Park Conservancy