Green Diamond Case Study  Myrtle Beach developer Burroughs & Chapin bought over 4,500 acres of mostly flood-prone land south of Columbia for a grandiose real estate development called Green Diamond. It then sought $192 million in public financing for its development costs, and assembled a formidable team of local lawyers, lobbyists, leading advertising and PR firms, and political consultants to wrest desirable outcomes from the local political system. I was hired by a non-profit entity onto a very small local team to educate the area public about this looming development and to temper the outcome. The facts were strongly on our side. So too were a diverse collection of environmental and neighborhood groups, anti-tax proponents, public education advocates, and good-government activists. We could not attempt match B&C dollar for dollar, but we did use our various organizational perspectives and expertise to advocate and expose aspects of the project that were deceitful, potentially dangerous, or costly to the public. Because the key decision makers would be local elected officials, we ran an 'elite' advocacy campaign—a small, but targeted 'high-end' effort to counter B&C's larger operation. We used print media and written materials to make our case which, though compelling, was technically complicated. In the end we commanded the intellectually higher ground. As a result, we are getting the "good government" and more thoughtful public policy we sought. Bob Wislinski Another Case Study: Animal Mission More Kudos |
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