What we do
C3 provides strategic communications counsel for coastal agencies navigating complex, long-term trust challenges — contentious infrastructure projects, environmental controversies, governance failures, or simply the accumulated weight of years of poor communication.
We help agencies understand where trust has broken down, develop strategies to rebuild it, and build the internal communications capacity to sustain it over time.
Core capabilities
- Communications audits and trust assessments
- Strategic communications planning (1–3 year horizons)
- Stakeholder mapping and relationship management
- Narrative development and message architecture
- Leadership communications coaching
- Board and elected official communications support
- Crisis communications planning and response
- Internal communications capacity building
Trust is earned, not declared
Many agencies try to rebuild trust by announcing that they are committed to transparency. C3 takes a different approach: we help agencies demonstrate trustworthiness through consistent, honest, and accessible communication — over months and years, not in a single press release.
This means being honest about uncertainty, acknowledging past failures, and communicating proactively about bad news as well as good. It means treating residents as partners in governance, not audiences for messaging.
C3's founder Trei Johnson spent 15+ years as a journalist covering coastal communities. She knows what erodes public trust — and what rebuilds it.
The long game
Civic trust strategy is not a project with a defined end date. C3 offers ongoing strategic counsel relationships for agencies that want a long-term communications partner — someone who knows their history, their community, and their challenges well enough to give advice that is genuinely useful.