Brownbag on USAID Water

Communications and Global

Waters platforms

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Key Points of Contact

Hailey Keuck
Abbie Jones Chief of Party
Division Chief USAID Global Waters
USAID Center for Water Security, Communications Knowledge Management II
Sanitation, and Hygiene EnCompass
Contact: abjones@usaid.gov Contact: encompass@waterckm.com
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USAID Water Team and Strategic Communications

● Communications is a critical part of the way the

USAID water team does business and is an essential
element of the implementation of the Global Water
Strategy

● The Center for Water develops an annual strategic

communications strategy and works hand-in-hand
with the CKM II project to implement this strategy

The Global Waters CKM II project supports USAID and its

partners to increase awareness and understanding of
Agency activities that advance the U.S. Global Water
Strategy.

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USAID Water Team Platforms

Global Waters LinkedIn

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Twitter
How partners can utilize our
Twitter account:
@USAIDWater Twitter account is an active presence
online, regularly elevating content from GlobalWaters.org,
USAID.gov, and others.
● Let us know if there is a
tweet you would like us
With over 13,000 followers and an average engagement to amplify/retweet
rate* of 3%, promoting content on Twitter improves
visibility and engagement on our content. ● We particularly like
social media content
related to campaign
days
● We also like sharing
about upcoming events
or announcements
*The engagement rate is the number of accounts who interacted with a tweet
divided by the number of accounts who saw the tweet in their feeds.

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 How partners can utilize the website:
1. Submit resources to the resource
library
GlobalWaters.org is an online knowledge-sharing platform for
disseminating best practices, lessons learned, and the latest 2. Highlight work via a story on the
research from USAID’s water security, sanitation, hygiene, and stories page
water resources management programs.
3. Keep your Activity Page up to
CKM II manages content curation and front/back end date
development for the website.
4. Promote events via events page

Quick Stats
• The website regularly averages ~90,000 page views per quarter

• The website attracts ~35,000 unique visitors per quarter. You may hear us refer to something as an “asset”
- this is our term for any type of content uploaded
• Users come from around the world, with 72% visiting from a non- to the Resource Library.
U.S. location.

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 Activities (filter by geography).
What kind of things are on GlobalWaters.org? Don’t see your activity listed or need
to update information on a page?
Email encompass@waterckm.com

Assets
Stories Resources Country pages Activity pages

Illustrative examples from Kenya

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E-Blasts
How partners can use e-blasts:
Global Waters General Listserv

Newsletters: Highlights campaign days, recent stories, 1. Newsletter: Submit content for
announcements, events, and resources upcoming newsletters at any
Resource Roundups: Each one centers around one topic (finance, time.
data, governance, etc.) and features related resources, tools, and 2. Events: We have a separate
USAID staff spotlights listserv for events. Reach out to
Each sent quarterly; curated by CKM II team and reviewed by
us to see how we can amplify
USAID Water Team.
your event. Please copy your
COR on event support
Quick Stats requests.
● We have around 15,000 subscribers
● Open rate: 24% Make sure you are
subscribed to both!
● Click rate: 6% (higher than industry average)
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LinkedIn How partners can utilize our
LinkedIn presence:

USAID Global Waters

● Connect with us (as
individuals or
LinkedIn is now one of the biggest social networks in organizations)
the world.
● Re-post our content that
More and more industry professionals are heading to excites you!
LinkedIn to build a network of like-minded individuals
● Flag your content that you
who are posting and sharing content about their
think would be a good fit
industries and their companies.
for us to post on LinkedIn
○ Research

Connect with us ○ Tools

○ Learning
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How to get your content featured
on Global Waters
Guidance on Resources, Stories, and Photos

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Where does your content live on the website?

Resource Library Stories Feed

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What’s the Difference?

Resource Library Stories Feed

A Rural Water Innovation and its Ripple Effect: Inform

al Water Operators Ready to Embrace Clean Water
USAID REAL-Water Explores the Impact of the Water Quality Assur
ance Fund on Ghana's Water Sector Formalization
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What’s in the Resource Library?
Resources include:
➔ Success stories
➔ Program reports or evaluations
➔ Announcements
➔ Briefs
➔ Videos
➔ Tools
➔ And more!

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Click here
to access
the form.

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Story Example
We’re especially looking for human-centered stories from USAID’s high priority countries
that align with the Global Water Strategy strategic objectives such as…

Human-centered: Felix Ywaya, a hardware store owner and

sanitation entrepreneur, helping to reach more people in his
community with higher quality, more hygienic and
environmentally-friendly sanitation solutions.

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GWS Strategic Objective 2: Increase equitable access to safe,
sustainable, and climate-resilient drinking water and sanitation
services and the adoption of key hygiene behaviors.

Champion for Change: One Entrepreneur's Missi

on to Transform Sanitation in Kakamega County
, Philip Bill Okaka, Western Kenya Sanitation
Project
The Story Mountain

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Read Felix’s story here. 17
All About our Story Feed REQUIRED CLEARANCES
Concept phase: Run the concept by your
What does it look like? A polished story with photos and quotes COR/the Mission
with one of the following elements:
Final draft: Secure clearances from your
○ Human-centric COR/the Mission.
○ High-level lessons learned especially if technical
○ Launch of a new resource or tool that USAID Before publishing: CKM II will help secure
prioritizes USAID/Washington clearance.
○ Activity spotlight featuring a USAID priority topic

CKM will: provide a thorough copy-edit to ensure quality,

format with photos and quotes, gather author headshot and bio,
secure clearance from USAID Water Center leadership.
Where does it go? Global Waters home page, story feed,
amplified on social media
Engage with CKM II early!
Reach out to CKM II with your story idea before
sending a full draft with final clearances as we
will likely need to work with you to shape the
content before publishing.

Email: encompass@waterckm.com

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Story Article

Transforming Sanitation in Benin One Latrine at a Time

● 800-1200 words ● Way to convey information

● Narrative arc ● Snapshot in time
● Bigger picture/context
More Guidance & Tips
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Article
● What does it look like? Pieces of content that convey REQUIRED CLEARANCES
information, but don’t rise to the level of a story, such Project clearance:
as: Who: The article must have approval from appropriate
contracting officer or Mission personnel and include
○ Regional conference wrap-up that clearance information at the end of the piece.
○ Project “success story,” or brief highlight of an USAID/Washington clearance not required
activity participant
○ Highlight of one aspect of a project
How to submit to CKM II:
● What do we do with it? CKM II will conduct a light ● Complete Asset Submission Form
● Send document or PDF to
copy edit and address glaring formatting issues
general@waterckm.com

● Where does it go? Resource Library, tagged as an

article, and on the related activity page (if there is one)

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Photo Sharing
We love photos! You can share photos with us at anytime.

To share your project photos with us please

follow these steps:
1. Create a folder for your photos with
the project name and country
Your photos will be added to Global Waters’
Flickr account, and may be used on the website, in
future blogs and reports, or social media.

2. Fill out this form with the

information relevant to each photo

3. Email encompass@waterckm.com
with the link to the photo folder you
created

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Final Reminders

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Opportunities to Connect

Reach out any time!

The Center for Water and the Global Waters CKM II team are available to meet with you
or discuss your ideas at any time. Just email abjones@usaid.gov and
encompass@waterckm.com to get in touch.

Follow and Subscribe

● Subscribe to our Newsletter and Resource Round-Up (quarterly)
● Follow @USAIDWater on Twitter
● Connect with us on LinkedIn
Connect with other IPs
CKM II maintains this Partner Contact List from programs and partnerships. Someone missing?
Details out of date? Let us know.
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 Important Dates and Events

• International Women's Day- March 8 • Global Handwashing Day - October 15

• World Water Day - March 22 • Unc Water And Health Conference - October

• World Health Day- April 7 • World Toilet Day - November 19

• Conference of the Parties (COP) - Nov/Dec
• World Hand Hygiene Day- May 5

• Menstrual Hygiene Day- May 28

CKM II will conduct a call for content from partners
• World Environment Day - June 5 4-6 weeks ahead of important campaign days
(highlighted in yellow).
• World Water Week- August
We look forward to promoting your content within
our broader social media toolkits!
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Flickr
How partners can utilize our
USAID Global Waters Flickr account:
• Photos help USAID show the impact of its
investments around the world ● Share photos with
CKM II team to upload
• Flickr allows USAID to make photos
onto the water Flickr
available to the partners and stakeholders
account
for use
● Use photos available on
the account for your
Photo Contest social media, stories,
Our annual contest is an opportunity for partners
and Missions to share photos that best represent presentations, and
their work under the Global Water Strategy. more.
Stay tuned later this year for 2024 contest ● See how to share
details! See 2023 winners
photos on slides 21
and honorable mentions.

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Get communications tips straight to your
inbox with our monthly Knowledge Bites.
Past topics have included:

➔ Photography
➔ All About Search Engine Optimization (SEO
➔ Video and Consent )

➔ Asset Submission Process ➔ Using Hashtags on LinkedIn

➔ Story Creation ➔ Global Waters Icon Library

➔ What makes a good story? ➔ Your Way to a Wonderful Webinar

➔ What’s in a Name? Composing titles that h ➔ Canva Templates

ook your readers

➔ Using LinkedIn to Reach your Target Audi

ences Contact Joelle from CKM II to be added
to the mailing list.
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