The Salvation Army New Jersey Division

The Salvation Army New Jersey Division: The Statewide Leader in COVID-19 Relief Efforts

COVID-19 devastated people and families across the nation. People found themselves hungry, out of work, and homeless.

In New Jersey, The Salvation Army immediately scaled up its relief efforts and, alongside countless nonprofit organizations, stepped up to feed millions of individuals who were hardest hit by the pandemic. Rosica Communications, a longtime partner of The Salvation Army (TSA), worked to tell the important story of this more than 150-year-old charitable organization – and the tremendous impact it made. TSA quickly became and remains the number one COVID Relief organization in the state and nation.

Rosica positioned the NJ Divisional Commander, Major James Betts, as a thought leader on human services during the pandemic. Rosica’s media relations, PR, and communications services provided to TSA helped bring widespread attention to the nonprofit, which provides human services to families across New Jersey when needed most, addressing food insecurity, homelessness, mental illness, and disaster relief.

To effectively publicize the pandemic impact story, Rosica focused on the data. From March 2020 until May 2020, TSA New Jersey served more than 2.4 million meals, a nearly 500% increase from 2019. Since COVID-19 reached pandemic status on March 11, 2020, TSA NJ has served nearly 7 million meals statewide. We leveraged this story by publicizing food distribution events, including Thanksgiving food drives and Rescue Christmas Red Kettle events, obtaining countless broadcast segments, interviews, and articles, including two op-eds in nj.com.

In fact, Rosica secured PR coverage (earned media) in nine months than the Division enjoyed in the four years prior, combined. To grow its thought leadership, we arranged numerous interviews and op-ed opportunities for Salvation Army NJ and Major Betts about the nonprofit organization’s efforts across New Jersey. Betts discussed the spike in need and communicated calls to action regarding the redirected and expanded programs designed to better serve the state’s residents. Our publicity gave TSA and leaders within this vital nonprofit a voice in outlets like nj.com, WCBS Television, New Jersey News Network, and Fox News Radio.