Best Employee/Internal Communication

Chesterfield County, Va., saves big with online newsletter

Not only did putting County Comments online save the county a lot of money, it also enabled officials to build an easy-to-read resource.

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Chesterfield County, Va., has a lot of employees—more than 4,000—and they have a wide range of different jobs, from librarians to truck drivers.

It can be hard to reach that many people from so many walks of life. The county had a print newsletter that was costing it about $10,000 per year to produce, but in late 2011, it started reaching more employees for about $9,300 less with an online newsletter.

That new approach earned Chesterfield County top honors in the Best Employee/Internal Communication category of PR Daily’s 2013 Nonprofit PR Awards.

The new newsletter, County Comments, gave editors the opportunity to expand coverage with videos, slideshows, and interactive graphics. Last-minute edits are a lot easier.

Editors created the new, bimonthly publication using Adobe Creative Suite. The staff creates County Comments entirely in-house. Editors and designers are completely self-taught. The newsletter is still a work in progress, but the results—an easy-to-read, Flash-based newsletter with animated graphics (even on the covers) and lots of colorful photos—speak for themselves.

See read their newsletters, click here.

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