Cedar Hill EDC + Chamber
Strategic CounselBehavior ChangeBusiness StorytellingEducation + EngagementExperience Design
Turn relief into an ecosystem.
Overview
When COVID-19 put extraordinary pressure on Cedar Hill's small-business community, the Cedar Hill Economic Development Corporation and Chamber of Commerce had an immediate goal: get meaningful financial support to local businesses. But the strategy was more ambitious than relief alone.
What if public funding could also create a pathway into stronger business practices, deeper Chamber relationships, greater visibility, and ongoing participation in the local economy?
Zoe Communications helped translate that strategy into a connected communications, education, storytelling, and engagement system built to move businesses from receiving support to participating in a stronger local business ecosystem.
- $780K
- distributed to local businesses
- 69
- businesses funded
- 35
- became Chamber members
- 83%
- minority- and women-owned businesses
- 26K+
- social media reach
- 100%
- loan forgiveness reported through qualifying participation
Program outcomes reported by Cedar Hill Economic Development and Chamber leadership.
The strategic idea
The money opened the door. The system was designed to build what came next.
Cedar Hill Strong connected financial support to a set of business-building behaviors. Loan recipients could earn full forgiveness by completing qualifying activities, including virtual workshops and other program requirements.
That created a different communications challenge. Business owners did not simply need to hear that resources existed. They needed to understand the path, see value in participating, encounter useful education, build relationships with the Chamber, and remain visible to the community after the immediate crisis passed.
Zoe Comm's role was to help make that pathway understandable, useful, and worth joining.
- Relief funding
- Business-building activity
- Chamber relationship
- Visibility + participation
What we built
Not a campaign. A connected set of experiences.
Business storytelling
- Original production scope of 20 individual small-business profile videos
- 1 high-level anchor video explaining the broader Cedar Hill Strong effort
- Business photography and social storytelling designed to drive attention back to local businesses
Education + digital infrastructure
- Cedar Hill Strong Economy three-part Winter Workshop Series
- CedarHillWorkshops.com landing and registration experience
- Workshop promotion, participant communications, social deployment, and supporting educational content
- Step-by-step and DIY digital content supporting business owners between live sessions
Live + virtual programming
- Educational business and workforce summit planned and executed in two weeks
- Speaker development, program design, participant experience, promotion, and production
- Hybrid and virtual engagement built for a period when normal gathering was disrupted
Back to Business
- Second-phase narrative celebrating business resilience and the EDC + Chamber partnership
- Business stories, social content, documentary and gallery treatment, and a culminating community event
- Public gallery installation that continued beyond the event and moved into a community space and library
- Original Cedar Hill Strong song commissioned by Zoe Communications and written by Sean C. Johnson
Partnership + conversion
- Communications explicitly designed to help businesses understand the value of Chamber connection
- A campaign strategy that invited additional businesses into the Chamber and Cedar Hill Strong business ecosystem
- 35 funded businesses ultimately became Chamber members
Featured work
Why it mattered
The outcome was not awareness. It was participation.
The strongest proof is not the volume of content produced. It is what the system helped make possible. Emergency capital moved into the community, business owners completed qualifying development activities, dozens became Chamber members, and the relationship between the EDC, Chamber, and local businesses became visible through stories, education, and shared experiences.
This is the kind of communications problem Zoe Comm is built for: multiple institutions, multiple audiences, high stakes, limited time, and a desired behavior that cannot be produced by a single message.