Spreading a little resilience

In September 2020, a strategic partnership was formed between Diversus (formerly Aspen Pointe), El Paso County Public Health, NAMI Colorado Springs and the Lyda Hill Institute for Human Resilience (LHIHR) at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs with one clear mission: to spread free tools for community resilience in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic through a free, virtual training developed by experts at the LHIHR.

Relieved to be spreading anything but germs, we joined the collaboration to share this free training with as many El Paso County communities as possible. The tone of the campaign—honest, bold and encouraging—came from the authentic stories of community members living their grit in the midst of the pandemic. The campaign’s focus on a few El Paso County residents – a food bank worker, a manager at a local homeless shelter, a high school counselor and a small business owner –  highlight real people tapping into their own resilience to support their community, families, and colleagues.

Printed, digital and social ads were run in the Colorado Springs Independent, Colorado Springs Business Journal, Southeast Express and the Military Newspaper Group. A paid social campaign targeted disparate demographics that wouldn’t be easily reached through traditional channels—while wrapped signal boxes across the Southeast Colorado Springs took an edgier approach to telling the story of GRIT. In just three months, 15,000 flyers were distributed to local school districts, 75,000 resource cards were shared at COVID testing centers, 2,000 senior focused postcards and 500 COVID resource magnets were distributed to El Paso County senior citizens and medically compromised residents.

By the campaign’s end on 12/31/2020, 897 El Paso County residents had signed up for the GRIT training which was an increase of 119%.