Progressive Source designed and managed an outreach and marketing campaign for the Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District (NSAQMD). We created the campaign to promote their wood stove change out grant program and to educate the community about the best practices for home heating. NSAQMD is a public agency with mandates from the California Air Resource Board (CARB) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to preserve air quality in Placer, Plumas, and Sierra counties located in California Sierra Nevada mountain range.

Because of the region’s unique geography, woodsmoke and other particulate matter becomes trapped in mountain valleys during cold weather. This means that despite being located in a rural and sparsely populated area, the region has some of the worst air quality in the nation. Because of this, the EPA has made funds available to pay for residents to replace their old wood burning heating devices. Residents were eligible for grants of up to $13,500 and were able to choose from pellet stoves, mini split electric heat pumps, and EPA certified woodstoves.

While NSAQMD had had good success changing out many wood stoves, the program had been going on for 7 years and there were many holdouts who still were using older devices. Progressive Source was hired to help reach these hold outs and to educate the community more generally about the hazards of woodsmoke and the best practices for burning wood for heat.

The centerpiece of this campaign was our video series. We created five videos for the district. Three were aimed at promoting the change out program, while another two were focused on educating the public about the health effects of woodsmoke and the best practices for burning wood for heat. We developed a new landing page for the program page on the district’s website, and used targeted advertising to promote the videos through youtube and across the internet. On Youtube alone we generated fifty-two thousand views over the course of four months. This had a large impact on the community of less than ten thousand people.

In addition to the video campaign we also produced a series of flyers highlighting the changeout program to be sent out in municipal water bills. We also produced an educational brochure, combining many of the previous materials they gave to the public into one brochure.

Our work with NSAQMD on the Portola change out campaign highlights what Progressive Source Communications does best. We used evolutionary media advocacy to communicate high level concepts to the public, motivating local residents to take action and participate in the program, and met our clients challenging needs.