The Situation:

The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) is a private, non-profit service organization made up of 800 member high schools and middle-level schools from every corner of the state. The WIAA provides the structure, accountability and consistency through rules and regulations for more than 180,000 high school and middle-level students to participate in five different activity and sixteen athletics programs. The WIAA organizes and oversees more than 120 State Championships for those programs and communicates with schools, students and parents statewide.

The Approach:

Team Soapbox was hired to help the WIAA develop strategy and messaging that emphasized the organization’s role as an administrative body that services its members, stresses their role in overseeing rule-making decisions and polices, rather than setting them, and highlights the value of the organization and of sports and activity participation and culture.

Team Soapbox worked with statewide media outlets to pitch and place more than 35 earned media stories that shined a spotlight on the positive news and stories about the WIAA’s activities. Team Soapbox helped navigate sensitive, contentious, and emerging issues with crisis communications counsel for the organization including several issues with national attention and communications about an ongoing investigative process around a member school.