SC Appleseed

SC Appleseed Hero Image

NONPROFIT PARTNER: SC APPLESEED LEGAL JUSTICE CENTER

About SC Appleseed Legal Justice Center

The original idea for the Appleseed Justice Network was established by Harvard Law School’s Class of 1958 and the mission was to create an organization to establish and guide centers for law in the public interest. Instead of the traditional model of providing legal services to individuals, the Network’s strategy was to tackle system-wide reform.

SC Appleseed Legal Justice Center

  • Formerly established in 1996 as SC Appleseed (although started as a subsidiary of SC Legal Services prior to that)
  • Systemic advocacy for the low-income community
  • Affiliation with the Appleseed Foundation in 1998

Mission

  • SC Appleseed Legal Justice Center is a voice for low income South Carolinians
  • Dedicated to advocacy for low-income South Carolinians & to effecting systemic change by acting in and through the courts, legislature, administrative agencies, community and the media.
  • SC Appleseed fights for low income South Carolinians & works at the “intersection of SC communities, the statehouse and the courthouse”

DLI GROUP 4 COMMUNICATION STRATEGY ENHANCEMENT RECOMMENDATIONS

SC Appleseed’s mission is very specific but because their legal team works on so many different social justice issues and because the organization’s strategy is to tackle system-wide reform rather than provide legal services to individuals, Appleseed’s work is often behind the scenes and hard to recognize making it difficult to connect with community stakeholders who could be their strongest advocates.

Group 4 sought to answer the questions:

  • How can SC Appleseed better quantify the social justice issues they seek to address—hunger, homelessness, consumer protection, etc.—so they can raise awareness about their mission and elevate the profile of the work they do?
  • How can the SC Appleseed provide clarity and raise awareness about their mission?
  • How can a communication strategy help SC Appleseed to better connect with stakeholders that can elevate and support their work?

Towards that end Group 4 drew on the expertise of our members to create four distinct “Ambassador Profiles”—Civil Service, Medical Community, Faith Based Community and Media as a way to help SC Appleseed target these potential partners in social justice. These “Ambassador Profiles” are video clips from Karl Brady, Mark Humphreys, Sh’Kur Francis and Ryan Gilcrest. They are imbedded in the PowerPoint presentation shared with the group on December 17, 2020.

Group 4 also researched economic and demographic statistics that helped to “Quantify the Need” for the work that SC Appleseed does in key issues areas—Collateral Consequences, Consumer Protection, Education Policy, Healthcare, Housing, Hunger, and Immigration.

Both Ambassador Profiles and the “Quantifying the Need” statistics are included in the PowerPoint presentation shared with the group on December 17, 2020.

Meet the Fellows from this class.