In August 2020, the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM) announced a new subsidiary that launched in North Alabama, the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation and Integration Center (AMIIC). The newly established non-profit organization has a mission to increase the adoption of advanced manufacturing technologies and contribute to North Alabama’s pipeline of highly-skilled workforce. To accomplish this mission, AMIIC needed to build community awareness and trust in the organization.

Flourish quickly jumped into a strategic communications partnership with AMIIC to help them plan and execute a successful AMIIC Community Kick-off Event. With just four weeks from beginning our partnership to the event, Flourish and AMIIC came together to inform the Huntsville community about the newly-formed organization and set the tone for what’s to come. This included the development of, a brand guide encompassing supporting collateral, website content,  and the development and execution of a 200-person event that would position AMIIC as an unbiased, third party resource to Huntsville’s government agencies, local leadership, academic institutions, and manufacturing and defense contracting industries. 

Flourish’s efforts included:

• Planning and managing the logistics of the AMIIC Community Kick-off
• Creating and sharing content on AMIIC’s LinkedIn page, and launching a LinkedIn event to encourage registration
• Establishing branding, beyond an AMIIC logo, for AMIIC to use for all event and regular marketing material
• Graphic design of event signs, board of director name tags, AMIIC pop-up banners, informational table cards, and an event slideshow
• Pitching and facilitating local media interviews to introduce AMIIC to the Huntsville community
• Setting up an AMIIC newsletter to encourage event registration and update participants on all pre and post-event details

In the end, AMIIC’s community kick off was a massive success that sparked new conversations about the future of advanced manufacturing in Huntsville. Our efforts led to 230 people in attendance at the event and a LinkedIn follower increase by 140% within the first 4 weeks of activation.