A recent Morning Consult poll of Americans showed a direct relationship between how much a utility communicates with its customers and customers’ level of trust in tap water. It confirmed that more communication means greater trust. We know that some utilities struggle with communications because they either don’t have anyone on staff who is trained to do it or they simply don’t have the time.
 
The nonprofit Virginia Health Catalyst is working on a solution. In collaboration with the Virginia Department of Health’s Office of Drinking Water, they’ve partnered with Raftelis to create a free water quality communications toolkit, which will provide guidance, how-to’s, and customizable templates to help Virginia utilities build trust in tap water with proactive, proven water quality communications. Once the toolkit is completed, utilities will have an opportunity to attend a free training to optimize the use of the communication tools and templates.
 
Here are three ways you can help us make this Toolkit a successful, useful resource:
  1. Join us in June (date TBD) for a 90-minute Zoom workshop to help us understand what you struggle with in terms of water quality communications, what you’d like for assistance, and what worries you most about proactive communications about water quality.
  1. Sign up for a one-on-one interview (by phone) to share similar thoughts as above. We will be seeking to speak to a wide range of utility leaders and communicators (from all sized utilities, rural, urban and suburban).
  1. Sign up to help us promote a consumer survey that will ask Virginia residents what they know – or want to understand better – about their drinking water quality. We will build the survey; you just help us get responses by sharing the link with customers.
Email Samantha Villegas (svillegas@raftelis.com) by May 31 to express your interest in any of these options and/or to learn more. We would like a mix of small and large utilities, rural and urban and in between!
 
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