The 2011 flood left severe damage and impairment to the Memphis community, with many neighborhoods still in recovery mode and unable to rebound even years later. In 2015, when the federal department of Housing and Urban Development announced the National Disaster Resilience Competition (NDRC) grant program to award local governments with funds for the purpose of promoting innovative resilience projects to better prepare communities for future storms and other events, Shelby County government leaders decided to aggressively pursue the grant award. Pique PR was engaged to support the grant application process. We developed a strategic communications and PR strategy to educate residents on the NDRC and its significance and encourage their participation in the brainstorming/research phase of the grant application.

 

We worked closely with leaders in the Memphis Shelby County Office of Sustainability to build awareness and publicity for Shelby County’s involvement in the NDRC, and in January of 2016, Shelby County was awarded a $60 million grant for resilience planning. After a successful partnership in the grant application phase, PiquePR was asked to continue collaborating with the Memphis & Shelby County Division of Planning and Development | Office of Resilience. Our team managed public relations, strategic communications, and public engagement surrounding the planning process and development of the Mid-South Regional Resilience Plan, which was completed in 2018.