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TO: YWCA Local Association Leaders

FROM: YWCA USA Communications

DATE: June 16, 2015

SUBJECT: National Communications Initiatives

Dear YWCA Leaders,

YWCA is on a Mission! We hope you are as excited as we are about the direction we are moving with our branding and messaging and the new marketing opportunities we introduced at the Annual Conference.

As we shared just prior to the Annual Conference, we are working with In America to produce a short form educational public television documentary and a public service announcement to highlight our work at the YWCA. Filming was completed during the annual conference and production is underway with an anticipated release date of early Fall 2015. These pieces will be distributed as follows:

• The documentary will be distributed to public television stations across the country for their use for up to one year. Note that each individual station selects their own programming so it is up to the discretion of each station to determine if they will air the documentary.
• The one minute public service announcement will air nationally during scheduled times on major news outlets like CNN and MSNBC.
• Both the documentary and the public service announcement will be made available to the YWCA in digital version which we will post on our website and make available to local YWCAs.

We also introduced the final branding and marketing concepts during the annual conference and were pleased with the positive feedback we received! If you missed the plenary session, you can see the presentation slides here. During the session, we announced the following:

• In August, we will introduce the refreshed branding materials and toolkit for local associations. As we work to strengthen our brand, it will be critical to have all local associations using the new materials consistently across the network for all digital and printed material. We anticipate that all YWCAs will be using the new materials within 12 months of the rollout later this summer.
• In the fall, we will introduce the “YWCA is on a Mission” campaign materials, along with a campaign rollout strategy and timeline. Because this is a comprehensive campaign, it will be critical to our success that local YWCAs begin using the materials after the campaign has been officially rolled out this fall.

We appreciate and share your eagerness to move these national initiatives forward and will continue to keep you apprised of the status of these projects and the availability of the materials and resources via the intranet and upcoming YWConnect calls.

Sincerely,

YWCA USA Communications