Creating Content with Purpose in Partnership with the City of Cleveland 
By Mikayla Payne, Digital Content Production Minor, School of Communication, Levin College of Public Affairs and Education 

This semester, I am completing COM 430, the capstone course for the digital content production minor in the School of Communication of Levin College. This course is designed to provide students with hands-on, professional experience by partnering with real-world clients. This semester my classmates and I had the incredible opportunity to collaborate directly with the City of Cleveland. 

Our class was divided into five project teams, each assigned a unique city initiative: Climate Action Plan, Historic Landmarks, Positive Police Stories, Southeast Side Promise, and Recreational Centers. 

I joined the Climate Action Plan (CAP) group where our charge was to develop compelling and accessible digital content that promoted the city’s updated CAP, to be released in late April 2025. 

We worked closely with Brittany Montgomery, Public Information Officer of Sustainability. Brittany served as a remarkable client and mentor—sharing her expertise, connecting us with valuable contacts, and helping shape our content strategy. Our goal was to create content that made the CAP’s six core sectors—clean energy, resilient people, clean transportation, built environment, circular economy, and nature-based solutions—digestible and engaging for the public.

To meet this challenge, our team conducted extensive research and coordinated 13 interviews with local experts, community advocates, and city officials. From this work we produced a range of digital content including: 

• A carousel post for Instagram summarizing the six CAP sectors in a visually engaging and easy-to-understand format.
• A series of short-form Instagram Reels and long-form YouTube videos drawn from our interviews and research.  

These products reflect not only our technical skills in video production, editing, and design, but also our ability to communicate complex policy updates in a relatable, community-centered way. 

One of our most rewarding experiences was attending the NEO Youth Summit on April 11 at the Cleveland Public Library, where my teammate Christina Ibos and I interviewed high school students who organized the event. Their passion for climate justice inspired us, and we captured video footage that we later edited into short-form media—creating social content that highlighted youth voices in the local climate movement and showcased the next generation of changemakers in Cleveland!

We had the incredible opportunity to present our work at City Hall in front of Mayor Justin Bibb. Standing there with my classmates, showcasing the projects we had poured so much time and energy into, was both exciting and surreal. It felt like a real moment of recognition—not just for the content we created, but for the collaboration and learning that happened along the way. 

It was a joy to work closely with the City of Cleveland, building meaningful connections, contributing to our community, and applying our digital content production skills in a real-world environment. 

This experience gave me a deeper understanding of how media can support public communication and civic engagement. I left the project with a strong sense of fulfillment and pride in the work we accomplished, and I now feel more confident in my ability to create content that makes a difference.