“Not only did this conference strengthen our role as a trusted, national convener in public health, but it also directly helped to expand our audience, deepen engagement, and deliver high-quality value to professionals working on the front lines of public trust.”

– Amanda Kwong, MPH (Director, PHCC)

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Turning Insight into Action for Public Health Communicators Nationwide

Client: Public Health Communications Collaborative (PHCC)
Project: Insights to Practice Virtual Conference

Founded in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 public health emergency, the Public Health Communications Collaborative (PHCC) supports professionals who communicate about public health by producing practical tools, research, and learning opportunities for community-level leaders nationwide.

In 2025—five years removed from the start of COVID-19 and at the beginning of a new federal administration—PHCC recognized an inflection point for the field. Public health communicators were navigating shifts in policy, trust, and public attention. After listening to its community, PHCC identified the need for a free, accessible, virtual gathering that would center both emerging research and the real-world needs of practitioners across the U.S.

As PHCC’s long-standing strategic communications partner, Mission Partners was engaged to bring that vision to life, from concept through execution.

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The Approach:
Design a Conference for Real-World Application

From the outset, the goal was clear: this conference needed to practically equip, not just inform. We developed the event identity, Insights to Practice, to reflect its core promise: translating knowledge into strategies communicators could use right away.

We structured the nearly three-hour program to balance presentation-based sessions featuring actionable frameworks with moderated panels that surfaced lessons learned from the field, anchored by a keynote that set strategic context for the moment.

Practicality guided every decision we made, including:

• Program structure and session development
• Speaker coordination and communications
• Panelist briefings and prep sessions
• Moderator question development and run-of-show design
• Event promotion and outreach strategy
• Registration management and technical production logistics

While ensuring day-to-day work remained on track, our team also managed full-scale production, from program development to technical execution, ensuring a seamless, professional experience that elevated the PHCC brand.

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The Results:
Engagement, Growth, and Lasting Impact

The conference sparked real action and team-level planning across the country at a time when public health communicators were facing uncertainty and increasing complexity. As a result, the virtual conference exceeded expectations across every major metric.

Key outcomes included:

• 3,000 registrants, reaching maximum capacity
• 35% new-to-PHCC attendees, significantly expanding the organization’s reach
• 95% said they would attend another PHCC virtual conference
• 95% agreed or strongly agreed that they learned something they could immediately implement

Notably, attendees didn’t just drop in for a single session. Most stayed for the duration of the three-hour program — an unusually high level of commitment for a virtual conference environment.

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Dive Deeper:

Interested in hearing more about our work with PHCC? Listen to Carrie Fox’s conversation with Amanda Kwong, Director of PHCC, on the Mission Forward podcast.