Sterkovsky shared that the rising cost of living and doing business in Seattle is a significant challenge for the human service sector, impacting everything from staff recruitment and retention to service delivery. This challenge is exacerbated when city contracts do not account for increasing costs due to inflation. Prior to this campaign, decisions about including adjustments for inflation in human service contracts as part of the city’s budget were made on a year to year basis. Every year, SHSC and its partners would have to make the case for an inflation adjustment to the Mayor and City Council. The results were mixed. Some years, adjustments for inflation were included in the city budget, some years they were not. Sterkovsky explained that, last fall, SHSC and member coalitions made a strategic decision to push for a long-term sustainable solution by recommending an automatic annual inflation adjustment for all city human service contracts.
To ensure consistency of communications across organizations, SHSC crafted reinforcing messages using reframing strategies and principles, with technical assistance from the National Reframing Initiative. SHSC also had hosted a National Reframing Initiative training in the spring, which grounded members in the evidence-based communications recommendations that ultimately informed the campaign message development. SHSC and member coalitions like the Seattle-King County Coalition on Homelessness organized members representing different human services, as well as recipients of services, to meet with Council members and present comments at committee meetings.
