Case Studies

Early Education Leaders, an Institute at UMass Boston

Since 2016, Influence Consulting has represented Early Education Leaders. We help drive program attendance and philanthropic support by highlighting the impact of the institute’s leadership development and research.

We work closely with Early Education Leaders’s program leads to identify stories of impact and share them through blog profiles, videos, social media posts (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Threads), and media coverage. We also promote the impact of the institute’s research on the field with easy to understand one-pagers that are shared with early educators, policymakers, and media. 

Thought leadership is a key component of our work with Early Education Leaders. Working closely with Anne Douglass, PhD, the founder and executive director of Early Education Leaders, we place opeds and letters to the editor. Examples include:

  • An oped for The Conversation about the impact of entrepreneurial leadership training on the childcare and early education workforce.
  • An oped for Commonwealth Beacon about the impact of Early Education Leaders’s proprietary entrepreneurial leadership training program.
  • A letter to the Boston Globe in response to an oped claiming that the gender wage gap is a “myth” explains that the devaluation of work typically performed by women, such as the provision of early care and education, is a contributing factor to the gender wage gap.
  • An interview with the Preschool Podcast in which Dr. Douglass talks about the need for training in entrepreneurial leadership in the early education workforce.
  • An oped for Commonwealth Beacon about how low pay is driving the current shortage of educators for youngest children in Massachusetts.
  • A blog post for New America cautioning that early educators are being ignored in the push to enact reforms in the field of early care and education.
  • An oped for the Boston Globe detailing the forces working against the success of quality early care and education programs in Massachusetts.

Media Advocacy

The Boston Area Rape Crisis Center (BARCC) faced challenges in getting the Massachusetts Gaming Commission to understand how deeply problematic it would be to permit the casino being built in Everett by Wynn Resorts to display the name of its founder Steve Wynn. At the time of construction, multiple Wynn Resort employees, including one who received a $7.5 million settlement from Wynn, had reported that Wynn sexually assaulted them.

Influence Consulting designed and implemented a media advocacy campaign to bring public pressure on the Gaming Commission to require that that the casino have a different name. First, the organization released a statement calling on the Gaming Commission, the governor, attorney general, and state lawmakers to prevent Wynn Resorts from using Wynn’s name on the Everett casino. The message was focused on community values. In a Boston Globe story prompted by the statement, BARCC’s executive director said that keeping Wynn’s name on the project would be a mistake: “Take the time and ask yourself: What values does that show?” The organization sent out email alerts to its membership and shared its message on social media.

BARCC’s call to action was echoed by Jane Doe, Inc., then-Gov. Charlie Baker, Attorney General Maura Healey, Congressman Michael Capuano, and Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley. The Boston Business Journal editorialized that the casino, which known as Wynn Boston Harbor, must be renamed: “It’s time for Massachusetts gaming commissioners to do more than investigate. Certainly, there’s no stopping the casino’s construction, and it’s too far along for another casino operator to move in. … No, even as the investigation continues, one step seems clear: Change the name, an idea first mentioned by local nonprofit The Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. If Greater Boston must have a casino, it shouldn’t bear the Wynn name.”

Just two months after launching its campaign, Wynn Resorts announced that the Everett casino would not bear Wynn’s name and would instead be called Encore Boston Harbor.

Using Social Media for Issue Advocacy

In the spring of 2017, Congress considered numerous bills to repeal the Affordable Care Act and one was approved by the House in May of that year. The Boston Area Rape Crisis Center (BARCC) wanted to educate policymakers and lawmakers about the potential impact that repeal of the law could have on survivors of sexual assault, who are vulnerable to numerous health conditions over the course of their life. 

Prior to passage of the Affordable Care Act, health insurers routinely denied coverage to sexual assault survivors who had been previously treated for health conditions related to the assault on the grounds that these were pre-existing conditions. BARCC placed an oped explaining this issue in the Washington, DC-based online publication The Hill. The Hill was chosen because it is read each morning by Congressional staffers and policy makers, as well as online political news aggregators including Raw Story, Talking Points Memo, BuzzFeed, Vice, and Mic.

The oped was picked up by Raw Story and Vice, both of which published summaries of it and emphasized the piece’s most important point: People of all genders who have survived rape are at higher risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and substance abuse, and therefore vulnerable to health insurer discrimination on the basis of pre-existing conditions.

Over the next 48 hours the idea that health treatment for rape could be treated as a pre-existing condition was shared via memes and posts on Twitter and Facebook. House Minority Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted it out as did California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsome.

As the idea went viral on social media, other media began reporting on it including the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, The Independent, and New York Magazine.

From CNN
From CNN
From The Independent
From The Cut

One week after The Hill oped was published, the idea of whether sexual assault survivors would be once again subjected to health insurance discrimination if the Affordable Care Act was repealed came up in Congressman Tom MacArthur of New Jersey’s town hall meeting with constituents. MacArthur was subsequently defeated in the 2018 midterm elections.

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