In 2020, the Public Health Communications Collaborative (PHCC) formed to provide communications support to local and state health departments, build trust and credibility in the CDC guidance, and keep communities safe and healthy during the COVID-19 pandemic. In May 2021, Mission Partners stepped in to manage the day-to-day communications and project management of the Collaborative. The first step the team took was to establish strong communications systems to manage the ever-evolving reality of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to providing ongoing communications and graphic design support, the Mission Partners team facilitates coalition meetings and engages partners and develops messaging guidance on urgent public health issues. Mission Partners also plans and leads webinars on timely topics and builds the organization’s content strategy for social media and email. Balancing details with the bigger picture, the team handles both rapid responses and the long-term vision of building trust in public health. 

Working with the Collaborative, Mission Partners has raised the profile of the organization among the public health community. Since beginning our work together, the Collaborative hosted its largest webinar to-date with over 2,000 registrants. Additionally, the Collaborative developed an educational toolkit for national distribution and continues to show month-over-month growth in web traffic and engagement. Now over two years into the pandemic, Mission Partners is sup-porting the Collaborative to develop its 2022 strategy. The strategy will focus on how the Collaborative can evolve from a COVID-19-era project to a long-term effort invested in strengthening public health communications.