Client: Park Slope 5th Avenue BID

The Park Slope Fifth Avenue Business Improvement District was recently approved by the City of New York in the Spring of 2009 to help improve the avenue's business atmosphere and cleanliness. One of the first orders of business for the BID was to put it on the map, online, so that Park Slope's tech-savvy residents could learn more about the BID and its activities.

M2C Consulting was retained to help design a quick, inexpensive web presence for the BID. In doing research for the project, it became clear that many of New York City's BID's have designed websites that simply describe the organization's work. This type of site is informative, but rarely visited!Given the condition of New York's economy, M2C Consulting recommended developing an actual BID informational site as a secondary project. As a first order of business, it was recommended that the BID develop a blog and Twitter account that could help inform residents about their local merchants, new businesses opening along the avenue, special restaurant and store offers and events along the avenue. In May 2009, the site All About Fifth was developed and launched, along with the Twitter page @AllAboutFifth.

M2C Consulting plays a daily role in managing AllAboutFifth; writing blog posts and Tweets, and will play a future role in developing the BID's informational site in the Fall of 2009.

Client: Tony Avella for Mayor

In early 2008, City Council Member Tony Avella hired M2C Consulting to develop a simple, inexpensive online presence for the early stages of his 2009 campaign for Mayor of the City of New York. The work included: developing a website through which he could promote his campaign positions and post announcements, creating a way to raise public matching funds online for his campaign (a mechanism that we built from scratch), and building an early social media network using MySpace, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube.

Throughout 2008 and early 2009, M2C Consulting updated the site, TonyAvellaforMayor.com on a regular basis; writing, editing and posting all of the material on the site.

Client: Manhattan Waterfront Parks Coalition

From 2006-2008, M2C Consulting partnered with the Friends of Hudson River Park to develop a coalition of waterfront park advocacy organizations in Manhattan that would:

* Seek public and private funding for all waterfront projects that were ready to be developed;

* Act as a unified voice for waterfront access along Manhattan's shore;

* Assist the City of New York in prioritizing waterfront access projects.

As a result of the coalition's combined efforts, public funding was secured for the High Bridge, Solar 2 and East River Park, totaling more than $65 million. M2C Consulting played a key role in lobbying for the funds and in coordinating the Manhattan Waterfront Parks Coalition's advocacy strategy.

Client: www.gothamgazette.com

In 2006, M2C Consulting began working with www.gothamgazette.com, a New York City-focused news and policy site run by the Citizens Union Foundation to increase advertising revenue generated by the site.

Since 2006, revenues have more than doubled and local universities and colleges are now competing to buy advertising spots on the site. To view Gotham Gazette's advertising rates and media kit, which were developed by M2C Consulting, click here.

Client: New Yorkers for Parks

In May 2006, M2C Consulting worked with New Yorkers for Parks, a non-profit organization that advocates for parks and open spaces in New York City, to develop an easy-to-understand park advocacy guide book for local advocates. The book focused on ways to attract public attention to local park needs and laid out steps that can be taken to attract public funding for the park through the city's budget process.

The guide was distributed to hundreds of park advocates as part of NY4P's efforts to educate community activists.

An online copy of the book is available here.

Client: Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy

In 2006, the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy, a non-profit organization working to make the park a reality, hired M2C Consulting to write a White Paper which examined public-private partnership models in park management and made recommendations on how the Conservancy can work with the City and State in an effective manner, after the park is built.

The paper served as an important educational tool for Conservancy Board Members and Brooklyn Bridge Park advocates and it served as a guide for developing a management system for the park, going forward.

A copy of the White Paper is available here.

Client: The Citizens Emergency Committee to Preserve Preservation

In August 2006, M2C Consulting was approached by an independent group of New York City Landmark advocates known as the Citizens Emergency Committee to Preserve Preservation (CECPP), seeking to reform the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). Specifically, the client sought to address the:

1. Lack of fairness in the process

2. Lack of independence on the Commission:

3. Lack of resources

To address CECPP's reform agenda, M2C Consulting crafted a multi-year advocacy strategy to highlight the need for change at LPC. A summary of M2C Consulting's work with CECPP includes:

1. Developing a website (www.savelpc.org) and email list to help spread the word and provoke activist action.

2. Assisting CECPP in taking specific actions to highlight the lack of transparency. These actions include:

*issuing a number of Freedom of Information requests to LPC, seeking to determine the number of Requests for Evaluations (Landmarking requests) had been submitted over a fixed time period and of those, how many had been acted on. The results of the inquiry can be see here. From this data,
*filing a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court (CECPP v. Tierney)seeking to compel LPC to act on the many RFE's that were never acted on.
*filing suit to compel the Mayor to make appointments to vacation LPC Commissioner seats
*leading an effort to to attract additional public funding for LPC, resulting in $300,000 of additional funds allocated in 2007/2008.

In the long term, M2C Consulting will be representing CECPP in a collabortive advocacy effort to reform LPC during the 2009 local elections and to attract additional funding to this chronically-underfunded but critical public agency.