EPA's Nonpoint Source (NPS) Outreach Digital Toolbox: Putting NPS Outreach Tools in Your Hands

Putting NPS Outreach Tools in Your Hands

Do you need to let people in your community understand how they can reduce runoff pollution, but don’t have the time, money, or staff to do the job right? EPA’s upcoming product, tentatively titled “NPS Outreach Digital Toolbox,” can help! EPA believes that it is better to prevent nonpoint source (NPS) pollution through education than it is to control it after it is generated. By creating this new set of resources, EPA hopes to enable and encourage local organizations and governments to lead this education effort.

Enabling the Education Process

Where did the idea for the Toolbox originate? To help address the NPS education and outreach needs of the public, the states (under the Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators) and EPA formed a Nonpoint Source Information Transfer and Outreach Workgroup (Workgroup) in 2000. The mission of the Workgroup is to raise public awareness about NPS problems and solutions and to motivate the public to change their behavior. The Workgroup researched various techniques to learn how best to reach the general public with the NPS message by conducting focus groups and consulting with various behavior change experts. Ultimately, the Workgroup decided that the most effective way to reach the public is by providing information and tools to state and local agencies and other organizations that will enable them to launch their own site-specific NPS pollution outreach campaigns.

The Toolbox will consist of two primary components: (1) a how-to guide for launching successful local watershed outreach campaigns; and (2) sample materials (in digital formats) such as public service announcements for TV and radio, billboard signs, and newspapers ads, that could be used and easily tailored to a community’s specific needs.

How-to Guide

The how-to guide, released in December 2003, is titled Getting in Step: A Guide for Conducting Watershed Outreach Campaigns. Getting In Step provides the overall framework for developing and implementing an outreach campaign in concert with an overall water quality improvement effort. It presents the outreach process as a series of steps, each building on the previous ones.

The steps are as follows:

1. Define the driving forces, goals, and objectives
2. Identify and analyze the target audience
3. Create the message
4. Package the message
5. Distribute the message
6. Evaluate the outreach campaign

Throughout the guide, sidebars provide specific examples, key concepts, and recommended resources for obtaining more information. The guide is an update of the popular 1998 Getting In Step: A Guide to Effective Outreach in Your Watershed published by the Council of State Governments and funded by EPA. The new guide explains how to develop strategies and tailor campaign materials to reach the critical target audience. It includes more details on working with the media, developing public service announcements, and hosting different community events. In addition, the updated guide provides information on using social marketing techniques to promote changes in behaviors and lifestyles within target audiences.

The guide is accompanied by a 35-minute video that showcases four watershed campaigns around the U.S. and the outreach techniques used to accomplish each community’s goals. To download a copy of the guide or order a free copy of the video, visit www.epa.gov/nps/outreach.html, or refer to the ordering information in the sidebar.

Ready-To-Use Materials and Templates

To make implementation of an outreach strategy as simple as possible, the NPS Outreach Digital Toolbox will also include a menu-driven CD-ROM that contains numerous sample materials and templates. Distribution of the CD product over the Web and a more complete DVD version are also planned. The Workgroup researched different NPS outreach campaigns around the country and selected materials that have been tried and tested. All materials will be made available to the public either as they are or with restrictions specified. EPA intends for state and local agencies and organizations to customize many of these materials simply by adding local contact information or watershed-specific facts, or to use them to get ideas for their own outreach messages. Users will find a variety of useful resources, including:

• Television and radio public service announcements
• Print ads in a variety of formats from billboards to newspaper ads
• Proven slogans, mascots, and ready-to-use logos (black/white and color) to help unify a community’s campaign
• Printer-ready samples of popular posters, bookmarks, fact sheets, brochures, and more to help spread the word about how each citizen can combat NPS pollution

A beta version of the NPS Outreach Digital Toolbox should be available for public testing by March 2005, with a final release scheduled for August 2005. If you have any materials you would like considered for inclusion in the Toolbox, please send an e-mail to Don Waye, of EPA’s NPS Control Branch, at waye.don@epa.gov.

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