The audit no other consultant will give you. A playbook your team can run.

Engagement Audit + Communication Playbook

A 6-week diagnostic and planning engagement that audits your current engagement practice, maps the stakeholder universe, identifies rumor-mill vulnerabilities, and delivers a 30/60/90-day multi-channel communication playbook for a specific project, initiative, or neighborhood. Flywheel's strongest differentiator — built from years of facilitating difficult community conversations across the Midwest.

Who it’s for: Communications directors, project managers on contentious projects, ED directors, redevelopment authorities, foundation program officers.

Pricing and Timing: $16,000, 6 weeks

Book a Discovery + Fit Call →

It’s the right fit…

For these roles:

City communications directors
Project managers assigned to contentious housing, redevelopment, or infrastructure projects
Economic development directors who own community-facing initiatives
Redevelopment authority directors
Community foundation program officers managing placemaking or housing initiatives
School district communications directors when housing or redevelopment projects affect enrollment or facilities

With these conditions:

Upcoming public announcement of a controversial project
Project already in trouble — protests, bad press, a hostile public hearing
New initiative starting: housing strategy, master plan, zoning overhaul, district redesignation
Recent turnover in the communications or engagement role
Funder or grant requires a specific engagement deliverable

Our audit and playbook were designed to address these challenges:

Every engagement meeting gets the same 15 angry people while 5,000 silent residents have no idea what's happening.
Misinformation is running ahead of the project and staff are playing catch-up.
Communication is one-way: PowerPoints and press releases, nothing coming back.
Engagement is ‘compliance’ for the grant approval, not a real tool.
A previous project got killed by opposition that could have been prevented with better communication.

What You Get

6–8 stakeholder interviews across the spectrum (staff, electeds, residents, business, opposition)
Current-state audit: how engagement happens today, where it breaks, what's working
Stakeholder universe map: who matters, who's missing, who influences whom
Rumor-mill vulnerability assessment: where misinformation will originate and how it will spread
30/60/90-day playbook: channels, cadences, message architecture, decision triggers
Script templates for door-to-door, existing-network leverage, and digital channels
60-minute playbook readout with the client team
One round of revisions

Investment

From $16,000
5–6 weeks

How It Works

We give you a real value preview by walking through a 2-page audit mini-framework on the call itself, before you commit. If we're not the right move, we say so.
Written 2–3 page proposal with fixed scope and fixed price. Contract plus 50% deposit to start.
We conduct 6–8 interviews in weeks 1–2. Some by phone, some in person. Confidentiality is structured — patterns reported, sources protected.
Weeks 3–4 we synthesize, map, and draft. End of week 4 you receive the draft playbook for review.
60-minute readout call with your team. One round of revisions follows. You own the final document.

Common Questions

We interview 6–8 people you select with us — typically staff, an elected, 2–3 residents (including known opposition), and 1–2 stakeholders from outside government (business, school, faith, neighborhood association). Interviews are confidential as to source; the audit reports patterns, not quotes attributed to individuals.
Yes. Implementation retainers run $3,000–$5,000 per month for 3–6 months and include hands-on execution support — door-to-door coordination, content production, social management. We discuss implementation as part of the readout, not before.
That's frequently the most valuable part of the engagement, and it's why the audit is delivered to you first, not to your council or board. You decide what to share and how. We help frame difficult findings constructively, but we don't soften them out of recognition.
PR firms specialize in message-out (broadcast). General engagement consultants specialize in message-in (listening). Our playbook does both, in sequence, tailored to multi-channel public-sector reality. We're built specifically for housing and redevelopment projects, not general communications.
The methodology works, but the price is the same and most internal-only situations don't justify it. Reach out and we'll be honest about whether it's a fit.
The 30/60/90-day playbook is project-specific. The stakeholder universe map and rumor-mill vulnerability assessment have ~12-month durability. Most clients return for updates when they launch a new initiative; some build their own capability internally — which is the goal.