KVNF's Senior Report Lisa Young speaks with Lindsay Mitchell, Delta County Public Information Officer, on the county's new communication management tool that will reach residents with important information.
LINDSAY MITCHELL: Delta County covers a large geographic area and not everyone regularly checks the website or social media. We have community spread out across the county and we wanted more direct, reliable way to stay connected. So the Delta County app is powered by ReachWell, it's our new official mobile communication tool.
It allows the county to share timely, accurate information directly with our residents, whether that's road closures, public meetings, community updates, or important notices. It provides the technology platform, but this is very much a Delta County communications tool designed to improve access, transparency connection across our entire county.
LISA YOUNG: How does this differ from Delta County Alerts?
MITCHELL: Delta County Alerts is really more of an emergency alert system. So when something happens as such as flooding or maybe a disaster or emergency in your specific area, this communication tool, that we now have, it is following that same platform on the ReachWell channel. You re going to want to follow Delta County in addition to Delta County Alerts. Because now when you follow Delta County, you're going to get notifications from all Delta County departments.
That that could be from the Clerk and Recorder's Office talking about things for the election and we just got a fraud notification system. So we would be alerting you on things like that. You could get an alert from our health department, our human services department.
We're also going to be sending out community resources. So when there's an event at the library that we think our community members would benefit from. Those are things that we're going to be sending out on this app.
We're not going to be sending out things that we think are too much where it's going to feel like spam. We don't want it to feel like that. We want it to feel very much community centered and focused. And and that was what we were missing. We were missing this direct line of communication to our residents in real time. Social media was really the only way that we could do that. But not everybody has social media and not everybody wants social media. And besides, the algorithm on social media doesn't allow everybody to see what we put out there. So now, as long as you're following us and you're following Delta County and Delta County Emergency Alerts, you know that you're getting everything that the county is sending to you.
YOUNG: Now this is a mobile app for your cell phone. How do people get the app?
MITCHELL: So it's actually really quite simple. It's only a few steps. You'll go to your app store. So whether that's the Apple Play Store or your Android store. You'll download the REACHWELL APP....that's a platform that we use. You'll search Delta County, and that'll come up Delta County and Delta County government, and then it'll come up Delta County emergency alerts. You'll want to follow both of those channels. And then what happens is you'll start to begin to get notifications. And it'll push notifications directly to your phone. You want to make sure you know you allow those notifications to come through. So it was very clear, um, and just easily accessible.
The other thing about this app that we love is that it's available on 130 different languages. So when you go in and you set it, you don't have to put your name or any personal information. That's the other part that we really love. Because, you know, if you sign up for any social media, you have to put a lot of personal information in those apps. This one you do not, but you can pick from 130 different languages, which is incredible. That allows accessibility to our entire community.
So it just comes through right on your phone and, that just allows us to make sure that we're reducing misinformation and that it's coming straight from the source.
YOUNG: Lindsay, this sounds like a really big project. Who is the the lead on the project? Is that you? If the health department has something that they want to get out, do they go through you or do they have direct access to the app and upload their own information?
MITCHELL: So that's a great question. So right now we're just launching. So we're in the test (stage). I'm really the lead on the project. So at this point the departments are sending me the information, and I'm kind of putting it into what I call a content calendar. So that way we know what we're sending out strategically, and we know that we're not just blasting everybody all the time because we don't want notification fatigue. We don't want people to start ignoring our notifications or, or unsubscribe.
We're really focusing on getting those early adopters and making sure that our content is, is worth their time and is good , you know, something that they find value in.
YOUNG: I just went in earlier and I do have that app on my phone now, and the process is fairly easy. But for some folks, they might get frustrated as they go in and they're trying to navigate the app. Who can help them? If somebody is on and they're just getting frustrated and they really want to get ReachWell and the Delta County notifications, who do they talk to to get a little bit of technical support?
MITCHELL: So the county has support. You can get in touch with us from 10 am to 3 pm during the week- Monday through Friday. We will help you download the app. We can walk you through it on the phone. You can also come down to the county offices. So please don't be shy. Call us at the county. Phone: (970) 874-2100 Address: 560 Dodge St, Delta, CO 81416
YOUNG: Lindsay, I know that you guys are not collecting anybody's personal information through this app. but do you have the ability to go on on the backside and actually see how many people have downloaded the app? And do you have that information now?
MITCHELL: We will be able to see on the back end. We'll be able to track our numbers, which will be great to see our growth. We are putting in a lot of just grassroot efforts into making sure people know about this.
I'm going to senior center luncheons and talking about it. I'm going to library meetings. I'm going to foster care parties. I'm just making sure that the community is aware of it. And so I'm hoping in a few months we will see those numbers dramatically increase. So I am tracking those. In a few months, I think we'll we'll see quite a dramatic increase, we just launched this week. So we're basically starting at ground zero on the project.
YOUNG: Lindsay, no project is free that I'm aware of. What is the cost of the the project? And how was it funded?
MITCHELL: So we did budget for this project. It was previously funded through Human Services, through a grant that they got. But they were only sending out messages under the Human Services communications channel. So anything that was going out, Human Services, they would send it out. But it was very sporadic. They just didn't have a dedicated person really to get that done.
I decided that, you know, this would really benefit the entire county for all departments to be able to send out these communications on one channel to break that cost, that minimal cost up between all the county governments, it was just a no brainer. When you look at the cost to run an ad in the paper or to get an ad on one of our major local radio stations, it's expensive. And so the cost of a subscription to ReachWell when we looked at it overall is less than five thousand dollars a year. It's well worth making sure that everyone in our community is knowledgeable about the resources that are at hand.
YOUNG: As somebody in the media I think it's imperative to have this on my phone as well so that I can keep up and not be constantly looking at Facebook. So I find value in it from that perspective. But just as a citizen of Delta County, to know that if there's something that the county feels is worthy to push out there, that I'll be notified of that if it's a special meeting, if it's a program, if there's just something in the community that you guys have gone through and felt is important for community members to know, it seems like, as you said, a no brainer to get this app up and going.
Of course, it's in its initial stages so folks can get on this mobile app. You can go to Apple App Store or Google Play to download it, and it's pretty easy to work with. But if you are having any issues, you can get a hold of the county and they can walk you through how to get set up with this new app on ReachWell via your Apple App Store or Google Play.
Lindsay, I'll give you the last word. Is there anything else that you'd like to share concerning the app? I'm impressed with the county's pursuit to find innovative ways to reach the residents with information.
MITCHELL: Well, I appreciate that, Lisa. I just wanted to say that we will still continue sending out multiple ways to reach our community. So we'll still put ads in the paper. We know that's important. We'll still be broadcasting out on the radio and we'll still be posting on Instagram and Facebook, so make sure that you're following us on those channels.
We also have great content on our website, and we are constantly updating that website. We actually just went through a big refresh and it's very community focused now. And so if you haven't checked that out, please do so. And we'll be sending our newsletter through this ReachWell app as well. So you'll definitely want to sign up through ReachWell to get the newsletter from the county.
