Case Study
Building a New Five-Year Advocacy Strategy
The Trevor Project
The Challenge
The mission of The Trevor Project is to end suicide among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning young people. Founded in 1998 as a lifeline for LGBTQ youth, the organization has since grown into a preeminent resource and advocate for LGBTQ youth.
When the organization found itself at a critical crossroads, The Trevor Project partnered with Fenton to build a strategic roadmap for the organization to follow over the next five years to bring victories and successes to their work. This included building a robust advocacy operation around conversion therapy, school suicide prevention policy, SOGI data collection and the national 988 hotline.
Our Approach
To build a long-term advocacy strategy for The Trevor Project, Fenton conducted research into all four key issue areas (conversion therapy, school suicide prevention policy, SOGI data collection and the national 988 hotline) to become subject-matter experts.
Following this research, we built a robust public education plan for each of these four areas, including developing messaging, target audience mapping and recommending how to engage audiences in order to maximize change.
Impact
The final deliverable for this project was a 59-page comprehensive playbook for Trevor’s advocacy work, outlining a five-year strategic plan that will serve as the organization’s roadmap moving forward.
By completing the playbook, we were able to provide clarity and guidance on how Trevor approaches individual issue areas and offer a new framework for advocacy more generally for the organization.
