Strategic Communications Planning
Reba follows a lesson learned from her dad – you’ve got to plan the work before you can work the plan. She lives by research and measurement to ensure she’s creating a communications strategy aligned with a client’s big vision. Reba’s work can involve developing the plan for an organization to implement itself or she can take the plan to full execution. She also works with organizations to evaluate their communications staffing and training needs using a well-proven audit/inventory tool that overlays communications functions with organizational goals.
Advocacy Outreach
After spending 35+ years in the halls of Congress, the S.C. Statehouse and more city halls than she can count, Reba understands politics and knows people all over the state. She’s led advocacy initiatives for federal and state funding issues and spearheaded a multi-year advocacy plan resulting in one of the most significant shifts in tax administration in years. Her background at the intersection of communications and government gives her the perfect vantage point to build a realistic, creative and accountable advocacy plan. She’s been doing this kind of work forever and has received recognition at the state and national levels – notably receiving the America’s Public Television Stations’ national grassroots advocacy award for SCETV’s digital conversion plan.
Writing
From speeches and opinion columns to feature articles and social content, Reba writes it. She’s considered herself a writer since the fourth grade when she won a VFW essay contest. Specializing in making the complex understandable, Reba ensures her clients’ messages resonate with the right audience. Reba’s writing work has appeared in national business publications, regional lifestyle magazines, and countless other print and digital publications. Her writing has won multiple awards from the S.C. Press Association, the Public Relations Society of America, the S.C. Chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators and the National Educational Television Association. Reba’s personal writing projects live on her blog, Random Connect Points. Find her professional writings in the Medway Group’s Stories.
Editing
Give Reba a style guide and a purple pen, and she’s in her element. (She believes in using a purple editing pen instead of a red one to dispel the myth that editing is “correcting” someone’s writing.) While some people may find editing to be a chore, Reba sees it as a puzzle to be solved. She takes on projects from basic proofreading to highly complex academic and legal documents to deliver a polished, understandable product. Although she claims to be personally in the “Anti-Oxford comma” camp, she easily adapts to any style.
Media Training and Media Relations
After 35+ years fielding questions from reporters and training others to be comfortable doing it, Reba coaches new and seasoned professionals to be calm and resourceful in a stressful media situation. She has decades of experience coaching local, state and national leaders to present with polish and confidence. Reba has media contacts all over the state and with many national business and education publications. The Medway Group curates an extensive (and updated weekly) media list of print, broadcast and digital reporters that reflects the rapidly changing media landscape in the state. The list can be tailored to a client’s specific audiences.
The Medway Group 