The City of Milton has earned a national award for its grassroots marketing campaign to creatively and effectively spread the important word about its most recent municipal election.

The National Association of Government Communicators recognized Milton’s efforts as part of its most recent Blue Pencil and Gold Screen Awards. These honor the best-of-the-best from the past year in communications among federal, state, tribal, military, and municipal governments.

Milton’s was among 361 submissions, as well as 100 eventual honorees. It took home second-place honors in the “Grassroots Marketing Campaign” category for its entry: “Historic, Multi-Faceted Outreach as Milton Runs its Municipal Election for the 1^st Time.” The City beat out the State of North Dakota, in addition to other unidentified submissions.

City Council voted in December 2022 that Milton would run its own municipal election for the first time. The next ten months featured significant scrutiny, education and execution by City staff that had never run an election before, and ultimately an extremely smooth, successful experience.

Communications was a small, albeit key, part of this effort especially given that so much about this election – such as procedures, advanced voting times, and polling places – were entirely new.

The City dove into that challenge, trying to be productive and proactive to reach people through various channels. They enlisted guidance from citizens Amy Christiansen, Ann Flack, and Melanie Hembree to help people know what’s going on. These included:

• A robust, dedicated, often updated Elections webpage packed with information
• Regular, engaging, accessible, understandable posts on Milton’s social media platforms
• Informative emails sent to the media and thousands of citizens, including those signed up for a dedicated Elections distribution list
• Targeted outreach – in the form of easy-to-share messages – to community leaders such as those affiliated with HOAs, apartments, and schools
• Coordination with the media in the form of advertisements and timely, thorough responses to media inquiries
• Outreach at well-attended community events like Crabapple Fest and Touch-a-Truck
• Specially made signage including banners and message boards that went up around parks, streets, City facilities, and polling places
• A custom one-page mailed out (in property tax bills) to all Milton homeowners
• Easy-to-follow one-page flyers displayed at the library, businesses, and some locales

The National Association of Government Communicators awards panel commended Milton’s efforts as well as what they cited as “documented results.” One lauded the effort as “quick and efficient with limited resources,” while another simply stated, “Incredible work!”