Natalie Bass, Katie Goodstadt, Amaya Heiselman, Camilyn Flores

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Table Of Contents

Organizational Background 3
Situational Analysis 7
Target Publics 8
Social Media Analysis 8
Goals and Strategies 16
Content 19
Implementation Plan 21
Evaluation Plan 23
Get to Know REPPED PR 25
Appendix 27

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Organizational Background
SCHF’s Roots

As found on the Salt City Harvest Farm (SCHF) website, the first garden at SCHF was

formed in 2012. Starting in 2013, over 40 New Americans helped to grow on the land. In 2015,

the first bus was donated to the farm to assist in transporting volunteers to the farm. The farm

also expanded in 2015 to add more growing space and an orchard. In 2016, the farm became a

501(c)(3). Also, at this time the farm partnered with RISE (Refugee & Immigrant

Self-Empowerment) to start the SyRAP program to help provide education for New Americans

to learn agricultural skills on their own plots. In 2018, the farmers in the SyRAP Program began

selling produce at the Central New York Regional Market. The farm also welcomed the Deaf

New American Community to grow at the farm. In 2020, the farm received funding from the

Chobani Impact Fund to increase infrastructure and marketing capacity which allowed them to

hire their first full-time employee.

The farm was started in an effort to link the Northside community members in Syracuse

with land that can help to sustain them. The Letcher family of Manlius donated 36 acres of

farmland along Flyer Road in Kirkville, NY, where the farm is currently located at 449 Flyer

Road. The farm was started to be used by the people served at the Franciscan Church of the

Assumption, located at 812 N. Salina Street. The farm was rooted in the idea that families would

be able to help work the land, growing vegetables and other produce.

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SCHF’s Mission

As stated on their website, “Salt City Harvest Farm grows food, culture and community

alongside the New American Community through the cross-cultural exchange of food traditions

with access to farmland, education, and economic opportunities”. The farm holds a community

farm, incubator farm, apple orchard and vineyard. The hope is for New Americans to plant their

roots and share their culture and food knowledge to nurture a connection and community to their

new land.

The New American farmers are able to bring diverse produce from their homelands to

local tables. The New Americans are primarily refugees and they find it hard to acquire land and

opportunities to grow or buy fresh produce from their home countries. The creation of the farm

helps to provide New Americans with a space to grow their own produce and form a community.

It is hard for New Americans to adapt to a new place and new country after coming from their

home country, but working on the farm is beneficial for their adaptation to their new

environment. The farm aims to build cross-cultural relationships, food independence, and

belonging for New Americans.

The farm's mission evolved when members of the Syracuse Northside community started

to volunteer at the farm. The volunteers at the farm help to build a stronger community within

the Northside community. Volunteers help to paint infrastructure, plant, weed and distribute

produce. Volunteers are crucial to the growth of the farm.

SCHF’s Vision

According to the Salt City Harvest Farm website, “the farm serves as a bridge for New

Americans as they adjust to their new surroundings, language and culture. The cultivation of

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culturally-appropriate foods helps New Americans maintain their cultural identity and heritage in

an unfamiliar environment. The farm works to transform the Central New York Community by

creating opportunities for New Americans to grow foods precious to their traditions and bring

together cultures from around the world to benefit all of CNY”. The farm aims to assist a

community that would otherwise be overlooked. There are at least six different languages spoken

at the farm, and there are also translators to help them communicate. This farm is especially

important because it allows people to safely practice their cultural ways and benefits their

physical and emotional health. They can bring home what they plant to their families. The goal is

to keep them in touch with their roots in a safe environment and have these new experiences

expand to residents of Central New York.

SCHF’s Board and Leadership

The executive director of the farm is Jacob Gigler-Caro. He is passionate about growing

food and bringing people together. Jay Regmi is the farm manager. He is a deaf man who was

born in Nepal. He worked at not-for-profit organizations in Nepal and volunteered to help Deaf/

Deaf children and those with disabilities in rural areas in Nepal (Salt City Harvest Farm

Website).

The board of directors consists of a president, vice president, secretary, treasurer and

other board members. Matt Pottieger serves as president, Duane Groesbeck serves as the vice

president, Fred Mahan serves as the Secretary and Dennis Brady serves as the Treasurer. The

other board members are Theresa Letcher, Daryl Files, Michael Marrero and Grace Carlic. The

board of directors and the staff ensure that the farm is able to operate(Salt City Harvest Farm

Website).

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SCHF’s Future and Goals

In 2020, Salt City Harvest Farm received funding from the Gifford Foundation and began

a strategic planning process. Last year, the construction of the Community Pavilion began, which

provides a space for farmers to gather, wash & store crops and get out of the summer sun. This

year, the farm was selected for the “Design for Good'' workshop through Syracuse University.

This has led the farm to dive deeper into envisioning the future and the possibilities for the farm.

The farm strives to continue to teach and partner with groups to continue to grow and

teach the New American community. New Americans have been able to learn how to farm

within the Northeast American climate through the Refugee Agricultural Partnership program.

The partnership with programs such as RISE, classes are offered for New Americans to learn

skills such as the use of farming equipment and how to maintain crops.

An overall goal of the farm is to increase public opportunities and community

engagement to promote the farm, as well as connect locals in the area with local refugee farmers

through a common interest in food. They hope to increase the board size and capacity, implement

management systems and build their financial health.

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Situational Analysis

Strengths: Weaknesses:
● Farm’s purpose is for a great ● Saturation of nonprofits in both
cause lots of people can identify Syracuse and The United States
with and get behind ● Visibility of the farm to
○ Immigration and people non-related parties
from different ● Man-power
backgrounds ● Volunteer-based
○ Coming together for a
shared purpose
● Tangible location people can
come to and first-hand see the
change being made
● Unlike other non-profits, the
farm is creating actual products
○ The produce
● Already have an established
background of the farm’s
success.

Opportunities: Threats:
● Other non-profits
● Rise of nonprofits and charitable ● Large corporations
organizations gaining
recognition from social media
like TikTok
● Large corporations often look to
find smaller nonprofits to be
accredited for boosting
● Immigration is a huge topic in
today’s current political climate
● Salt City is still fairly small, lots
of opportunity for growth

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Target Publics
Our target publics are from three different demographics. There are three different

demographics consisting of a small donor, a medium donor and a large donor. Our small donor is

a young student who cares about the environment that attends either the David B. Falk School at

Syracuse University or SUNY ESF. Our medium donor is a restaurant owner from the local

community who values fresh ingredients and is interested in supporting the farm and possible

partnerships between the restaurant and the farm. The large donor is a senior executive at an

environmental firm and prides themselves on being philanthropic.

See Appendix A for Audience Personas

Social Media Analysis

Salt City Harvest Farm (SCHF) has platforms on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn,

YouTube, and a website. In a Google search of “Salt City Harvest Farm,” the top result is the

farm’s webpage. The next few search results are the Facebook page of the farm, the Instagram

page and a blog spot page (which has not been updated since 2017) for the farm.

The first search result is the webpage for the farm. The website clearly states the mission

and goals of the farm. On the home page, the mission statement is clearly stated and a brief video

explains the purpose of the farm. There is an upcoming events section that describes an

upcoming event for August 20, 2022. This would be a beneficial section, but they need to make

sure to update the section to keep it up to date. There is a section at the bottom of the page that

says “help us grow.” There are buttons to click to volunteer and donate. The donate button makes

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it easy to set up a donation. It leads to a page on the website that explains how the donation will

help and then allows a donor to set up a one-time or monthly donation. This is an easy way to get

donors and reach our target persona of a young college student or a local restaurant owner who

would want to make small or medium-size donations.

The drop-down menu on the farm webpage has tabs to go to the different pages of the

website. The drop-downs are “Our Story”, “Team”, “Work with Us”, “Partner with us”, “Get in

touch” and “Help us grow”. The “Our Story” page explains how and why the farm began and

how it has evolved. It explains in detail the vision for the farm and the journey that the farm has

taken from its start in 2012 to the present day. This page allows a viewer to connect with the

farms and understand its purpose which can convince a potential donor to make a donation. The

“Meet our Team” page introduces the staff at the farm and the board of directors at the farm. To

potentially increase donors, the farm should add a section on this page about specific refugees

who work at the farm but are not part of the leadership team. The “Work With Us” Page explains

how to get involved, such as how to volunteer at the farm and a farm to fill out if you are

interested in volunteering. The “Partner With Us” page encourages the audience to create a

partnership and connection with the farm. It explains what the farm is looking for in a

partnership and has a button to click on to get in touch with the farm. This page can encourage

larger donors who want to donate money and/or time to the farm. The “Get In Touch” page has

the farm’s email, address links to their social media pages (Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn),

and a form to fill out to contact the farm.

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 The website uses emotional persuasion by using the stories of those who work on the

farm and explaining and showing the positive effects it has to encourage potential donors to

donate. The farm should add profiles of specific refugees who work at the farm and increase the

number of photos on the webpage. This can help to increase the number of donations received.

Also, the farm should continue to regularly update the website to ensure dates and information

are relevant. The website could add a section for weekly or monthly blog posts from people who

support the farm, donate or volunteer regularly or work or live there. This could demonstrate the

positive effects of the farm and encourage local people to learn more about it.

The farm’s Instagram page has an inconsistent posting schedule. There is no weekly,

monthly or daily schedule for posting. The images that are posted are interesting and showing

images of produce and people working at the farm can engage the audience, but it would be

helpful to use captions to explain the pictures. Instagram would reach our audience of donors

because all potential donors have access to Instagram, but it would more likely reach our

younger and smaller potential donors. They can highlight specific refugees at the farm and their

stories. They can post consistent newsletters, like the one they posted in August. They can also

use the feature of Instagram reels because this can easily show up on the feed of a donor who

does not follow their Instagram page. Instagram reels can also show videos of what people do at

the farm. Consistency on Instagram will keep potential donors engaged and more likely to make

a donation. They can also add a link to donate in their Instagram bio and post a link to donate in

their Instagram stories to make it easy for donors to donate. For a local farm, their Instagram has

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a substantial amount of followers, but their posts are jumbled together, don’t have an overall

theme and look outdated. Their last post was on August 30, 2022, and they should be posting

stories and interactive content a few times every week in order to keep their followers updated as

well as entertained. They have a post from July 2022, and the last post before that was from the

past November. They should develop a social media content calendar to organize their posts and

help them grow on a larger level. If they tell a bigger story of the farm and post more emotional

content that would help their audience get to know the farm on a deeper level, this can help them

connect to their audience instead of blindly posting and getting little to no interaction from

people. They can also post higher quality photos on their Instagram, such as fresh produce. This

can not only encourage people to get produce from the farm but local restaurants as well. They

should also post photos of those who work on the farm or even volunteer there, and highlight

their achievements. Since the farm’s mission is to grow food, culture and community through a

cross-cultural exchange of food traditions with access to farmland, education and economic

opportunities, if they showcase the diversity of their workers on their Instagram, this can connect

to a bigger audience.

The farm’s Facebook Page has been posted generally consistently since June. They have

posted reels of work at the farm and advertised for volunteers. There could be more consistency

by posting on a more daily basis, but Facebook is more engaging than the Instagram feed. A way

to make this more engaging is by asking questions in the captions of posts and having the

audience comment on their answers to the question, this will allow the posts to have a larger

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reach and people to be more interested in learning more about the farm. The Facebook page will

reach our audience of donors because older people such as our potential bigger donors are

primarily on Facebook. They have 399 likes in total on Facebook, 446 followers, and 73

check-ins. They also have 5 stars. This is great for the farm. However, they should grow their

other social media platforms as well because especially for a younger generation that includes

students, they are way less likely to check Facebook and way more likely to be on a platform like

Instagram. They post volunteer days on Facebook, but they should also advertise volunteer days

on Instagram because that will likely reach students and younger people that would be interested

in volunteering one day.

SCHF’s Linkedin has a headline that states “ Growing food, culture, and community

through the cross-cultural exchange of food traditions” and in the overview section, they describe

the farm in more detail. There is also a link to their webpage on this profile. They have no posts

or reposts. LinkedIn could draw attention to donors' information about the farm. It is not the

social media platform that will receive the most attention, but it does have the potential to gain

donors. The farm can post articles in which the farm is mentioned. They can also repost articles

and posts that have to do with agriculture and refugees. These posts will gain traction from

people who care about farming and refugee support which can create an emotional connection

from potential donors to make a donation. They should post consistently on LinkedIn to reach

the largest number of people possible. LinkedIn is used by college students and professionals, so

LinkedIn posts can reach a large audience of different types of donors. LinkedIn is a platform

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that reaches educated people. LinkedIn is an important platform for donors because they can

decide whether or not this farm is an important enough organization for them to donate to.

LinkedIn is also user-friendly where you can easily share posts and if one of your connections

likes a post, it will show up in your feed. For example, if a student likes one of SCHF’s posts, it

will show up in all of their connections’ feeds. This makes it very fast to share a message.

Especially if the farm wants to attract more donors, they should utilize LinkedIn because they

can reach a much larger audience.

In addition, the farm has a YouTube account that has videos about farm education for the

Deaf community. This type of content shows their support and partnership with the deaf

community. The last time they posted a video on YouTube was four months ago. They only have

three subscribers. The YouTube page is not linked on their website or on their other social media

platforms, so it is hard to find. Since there are only three subscribers, they aren’t interacting with

a diverse group of people. They also have less than 10 views on all of the videos. YouTube is a

great platform to reach Generation Z and millennials, so if they wanted to increase their

engagement on YouTube, it could be beneficial to the farm by getting donors from this

community. The overall sentiment of YouTube is positive because it has videos supporting the

deaf community, but because of their lack of engagement, it isn’t successful. By increasing

content on the YouTube page, people will better understand the purpose of the farm and feel

more of a connection to donate.

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 The social media presence of the farm represents the brand in a positive way. They

portray the farm as a farm where refugees can come to the farm. It is a place for cross-cultural

exchange and community gathering. It is portrayed in a positive light, but there needs to be

consistency and updates regularly. The platforms need to post more about the mission and

purpose of the organization. The website does a solid job of laying out the foundation of the

farm, but the other platforms do not. There is little to no interaction between the followers on

social media platforms. There are very few comments and a small number of likes (the highest is

53 likes on an Instagram post). By increasing the number of posts, likes and comments will

increase.

The website is the first platform to come up in a Google search, and it is the platform that

has the most substantial information. If the YouTube channel came up first in a Google search,

people would be left wondering where they can find more information and probably be skeptical

because of the lack of engagement.

As well as improving their content on their platforms, they should also be measuring their

KPIs and metrics. For example, metrics are reach, clicks, engagement, hashtag performance,

organic vs paid likes and sentiment. Reach is the number of unique users who saw your post.

Clicks are the number of clicks on your content or account. This is essential to understand what

drives curiosity or encourages people to check out your profiles and platforms. Engagement is a

formula that is the number of social interactions divided by the number of impressions. Hashtag

performance is a brand’s most used hashtags or hashtags associated with their brand. Organic

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likes are likes naturally generated and paid are fake likes to boost your like count. Knowing the

difference between organic and paid likes can help a brand budget their ad spend and the time

they invest in different formats. Sentiment is the measurement of how users react to their content,

brand or hashtags. In general, SCHF should do more research on these areas to help them better

understand their audience of donors. They may have already done research on what platforms

their audience uses the most, but they should keep doing research to keep it up to date.

Donations are crucial to the success of the farm, so by improving the social presence of

the farm, more donations will be made. When they make changes to their social media platforms,

this will cause them to engage with a larger audience, thus growing the presence of the farm and

giving them more positive attention. When they grow a larger audience, they will also receive

more volunteers and people who admire the farm enough to donate money to them.

See Appendix B for Social Media Audit

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Goals and Strategies

Goal: Grow the number of overall donations given to Salt City Harvest Farm and establish

consistent ongoing donor relationships.

Objectives:

1. Increase donations by 3% by December 31, 2023.

2. Get written about in 3 Syracuse-based online publications highlighting how the

farm serves the local Syracuse community by February 28, 2023.

3. Establish two partnerships with local Syracuse companies by December 31, 2023.

Key Messaging

Central Message:

We connect the New American community to their new surroundings, language and

culture through the exchange of food traditions and access to farmland, education and economic

opportunities. The cultivation of food within Salt City Harvest Farm provides a safe community

for New Americans to maintain their cultural identity as they adjust to their new surroundings.

We strive to connect locals with the farmers through a common interest in food. The farm aims

to grow its community and it needs your help through donations to grow.

10 Key Messages:

● The farm utilizes donor funds to better the lives of the New American Community.

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 ● The farm allows for the exchange of food traditions in a new environment.

● The farm is a place for the cross-cultural exchange of food and traditions.

● There is access to farmland, education and economic opportunities.

● It is a community farm linking New Americans to land that can sustain them.

● The farm is a place for volunteering that links the community together through a common

love for food.

● The farm establishes cultural connections and fosters growth to support the New

American community in Central New York.

● The farm allows for fostering growth and cultural comfort through a welcoming farming

community

● Salt City Harvest Farm has the potential to expand and increase opportunities through

partner donors.

● The farm provides education opportunities through donations and volunteers.

10 Key Words:

● Local Community Farm

● Cross-cultural exchange

● Local Non-profit Donations

● New American community

● Syracuse Deaf community

● Community Garden

● Local Non-profit Partnerships

● Salt City

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● Non-Profit Syracuse

● Central New York Refugees

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Content

Content Calendar

This is a calendar highlighting some of the important posts for the month of May 2023.

Please see the appendix for a full content calendar with all of the content planned for May

2023.

See Appendix C for Content Calendar

We have established that in order to gain donors at Salt City Harvest Farm, there needs to be a

more consistent presence of Salt City Harvest Farm on social media. Our plan consists of two

blog posts per month, one to two TikToks per week, two Instagram posts per week and one

Facebook post per week. This will allow social media users, who are interested in the farm to

learn what the farm is all about.

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 Our target publics need to know what the farm does and how their donations will insight

change. This will be shown through various types of content displayed on the four social media

platforms. An important infographic that displays why people should donate to local non-profits

will be posted on the Instagram account and the Facebook account and there will be a TikTok

made to also spread this information. There will also be profiles of the farmers, the volunteers

and of Jacob to show why they care about the farm. This will create an emotional appeal to the

target audience urging them to donate. In addition, there will be a series called “Day in the Life”

that will be posted on TikTok that will have various people on the farm such as Jacob take the

viewers through what he does in a day. This will allow the various publics to understand what

goes on at the farm, so they will feel a stronger connection to the farm. There will also be posts

on the Instagram account, TikTok account and Facebook account showing the different types of

vegetables grown at the farm which will show the audience the uniqueness of the farm and how

they can grow vegetables that nowhere else in the area does. Lastly, each month there will be a

newsletter sent out and posted on the website, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok to keep the

subscribers informed.

In order to produce social media posts, an intern will need to be hired.

See Appendix D, E, F, G, H for Social Media mockups

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Implementation Plan

Budget:

1. Videographer- A videographer would get paid $25 per hour to come to take pictures and

videos of the farm. This would be eight hours of work on two separate days, four hours

each day. This would be $200. This would be a once-a-year task.

2. Social Media Intern- A social media intern to help with the social media for Salt City

Harvest Farm would get paid $15 per hour. Can be a college student with a major in

communications or someone out of college with good experience. They would work 10

hours per week for four weeks. This would be $600.

3. Instagram Advertisements- $5 a day for the second and third weeks of May to post

advertisements on Instagram based on impressions which would be $40.

4. Facebook Advertisements- $5 a day for the second and third weeks of May to post

advertisements on Facebook which would be $40.

5. TikTok Posts- There will be a cost of $0 to post TikTok videos on TikTok.

6. Instagram Posts- There will be a cost of $0 to post Instagram posts on Instagram.

7. Facebook Posts- There will be a cost of $0 to post Facebook Posts on Facebook.

8. Newsletter- The cost of sending out a newsletter to subscribers through email would be

$0.

9. Website posts- There will be a cost of $0 to post blog posts on the Salt City Harvest Farm

Webpage.

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 10. Google Analytics- This will be used to track Website traffic. This is a free tool and will

cost $0.

11. DonorBox- Track donations through this. The farm has access to this already, so this will

be a cost of $0.

12. Agency Cost- This plan took fourteen weeks to complete and the agency worked on the

project for an average of three hours per week. Our agency charges $40 per hour. This

will be a cost of $1680.

See Appendix I for Budget Table

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Evaluation Plan

The research and resources provided to us about Salt City Harvest Farm created a solid

foundation for the farm and what it has to offer. This helped to create a targeted campaign to

attract donors and increase donations for the farm. Though there is some missing information

that could have helped to build a stronger plan. In order to know what would encourage donors

to donate, it would have been helpful to have information from previous donors about why they

have donated to the farm. This would have helped formulate the social media content to be

directed more toward this specific audience.

The campaign can be evaluated by whether or not we have reached our goal and

objectives. Our goal is to grow the number of overall donations given to Salt City Harvest Farm

and establish consistent ongoing donor relationships. The three objectives that we established

under this goal are to increase donations by 3% by December 31, 2023, to get written about in 3

Syracuse based online publications highlighting how the farm serves the local Syracuse

community by February 28, 2023 and to establish two partnerships with local Syracuse

companies by December 31, 2023. We can assess the success of our campaign by evaluating

whether or not we have met these objectives by the goal dates. We will be able to track the

number of donations over time and evaluate the percentage of growth in donations to assess the

success of the campaign.

When posting content for the month of May, it is important to track the analytics of the

social media posts. The number of likes, comments and shares which can be accessed through

the Facebook, Instagram and TikTok apps can help show the reach of each post. This will

23
provide insight into whether or not the posts are gaining attention and creating awareness. This

information can be used to create content for future months and can be used to track the change

in the number of donations based on the content we are posting. The traction on the Salt City

Harvest website can be tracked through Google Analytics.

The success of the posts on Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook and the newsletter can be

assessed by tracking the number of donations that the farm receives. This can be tracked through

the application DonorBox. This is an application the farm already uses. This will allow the farm

to keep track of consistent and long-term donors and any other types of donations. The number

of donations should be tracked through DonorBox and measured at the end of each week, in

order to evaluate trends in donations.

See Appendix J for the timeline of the project

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Get to Know REPPED PR

Natalie Bass

Natalie is a junior at Syracuse University. She is studying Public Relations in the S.I.Newhouse

School of Public Communications. She is minoring in Sociology. She is originally from

Chappaqua, New York. She has spent the last two summers interning in the Public Relations

field in New York City. In her free time, she enjoys reading and cooking with her friends. After

graduating, she anticipates working in the social media industry or at a PR agency.

Katie Goodstadt

Katie Goodstadt is a junior at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications studying PR

and psychology from the New York City area. She is passionate about fashion and beauty,

traveling, writing, digital media and pop culture. She hopes to do corporate PR for a beauty

agency or beauty magazine in NYC in the future.

Camilyn Flores

Camilyn is a junior studying Public Relations at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public

Communications, with a minor in Theatre. She was born and raised in Queens, New York. Her

interests include dancing, singing, and acting. She is a part of the Latin dance troupe called

“Raices”. Camilyn hopes to become a public relations practitioner and gain experience with

different companies but plans on owning her own PR and advertising agency one day.

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Amaya Heiselman
Amaya is a junior at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications pursuing a major in

Public Relations and a minor in marketing at the Martin J. Whitman School of Business. Her

interests include fashion and beauty and diversity, equity and inclusion.

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Appendix

Appendix A

Audience Personas- Audience personas are profiles that represent different types of target

audiences for the organization.

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28
Appendix B

Salt City Harvest Farm Social Media Audit- a social media audit is the process of reviewing a

business’ metrics to asses growth opportunities and how to improve its social media presence.

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Appendix C

Content Calendar

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Appendix D

Infographic Mockup

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Appendix E

Newsletter Mockup

32
Appendix F

Facebook Mockup

33
Appendix G

Instagram Mockup

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Appendix H

TikTok Mockup

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Appendix I

Budget

BUDGET

Videographer $200

Social Media Intern $600

Instagram Advertisements $40

Facebook Advertisements $40

TikTok Posts $0

Instagram Posts $0

Facebook Posts $0

Newsletter $0

Website Posts $0

Google Analytics $0

DonorBox $0

Agency Cost $1680

TOTAL $2560.50

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Appendix J

Timeline/ GANTT CHART

A GANTT chart is a bar graph schedule for a project that displays the timeline of each part of the
project.

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