Our Experience

The Jeffery Group of Companies has delivered impressive results for business and government clients over its 15-year history across a broad range of sectors and a wide policy spectrum. Our clients include ROB100/Fortune500 companies, public sector agencies, and national non-profit organizations. We work across all sectors, leveraging our public policy and communications expertise to find the solutions that best meet our clients’ needs.

We work with our clients on diverse issues: from front page issues at the forefront of the public agenda, to client issues that require awareness and public or government support. Some of our recent successes include:

Relationship Building

We were retained to develop and implement a comprehensive government relations strategy for a global mining company, aimed at establishing strong working relationships at Ontario’s Queen’s Park, in order to help ensure the government addressed their priority issues.

Result: Within the first year, our strategy successfully positioned our client as a key investor in Ontario’s economy and an important member of its corporate community – with a real and measurable commitment to the province.

Issues Management & Community Consultations

In 1998, the Government of Ontario retained us to work with the Ontario Realty Corporation on the Province’s plans to develop a 400-acre parcel of land in downtown Toronto known as the West Don Lands. There were a large number of not-for-profit and for-profit tenants on the property including a homeless shelter; there was also significant illegal activity. Our role was to develop and execute a communications strategy with a focus on community consultations and stakeholder management in order to maximize the value of the land for Ontario taxpayers. We worked closely with community groups and the police, engaging them in a consultative process to determine future land uses. We worked closely with the tenants, ensuring a smooth end of their leases and moves to new locations.

Result: Working with ORC bureaucrats and senior political officials in Premier Harris’ Office and the Minister’s Office for six years, we helped build strong community support for the future re-development of the West Don Lands. This mixed use re-development is now underway with plans for 20,000 future residents who will enjoy a new neighbourhood in downtown Toronto.

Legislation

The world’s leading listed online gaming company retained us when they learned the Government of Canada was moving forward on a Bill which inadvertently threatened to illegalise their conduct of business with Canadian customers. By the time we had been retained, the Bill had already passed in the House of Commons with support from the Official Opposition.

Result: Working with members of the Government and the Official Opposition in the Senate, our client received on-the-record assurance from both the Senate and the Minister responsible that the legislation would not impede their ability to conduct business with Canadian customers.

Public-Private Partnerships

We were retained to develop and implement a comprehensive government relations and communications strategy for public funding of a national infrastructure project aimed at winning support from three levels of government, as well as community stakeholders.

Result: Our strategy was a success and resulted in a $10 million grant – with $5 million from the federal government and $5 million from the Ontario government—and a globally televised announcement that generated positive media coverage for our client and for government.

We were asked to develop and implement a government relations strategy to generate Cabinet support for an additional $96 million in capital funding for the Art Gallery of Ontario and five other major cultural institutions.

Result: Our strategy was a success, resulting in the government’s approval of $96 million, along with government recognition of the project as transforming the Province into one of the world’s principal cultural tourism destinations.

Awareness

A leading Canadian university organised a cutting-edge conference to address the issue of energy and its impact on the Great Lakes. They sought our assistance in raising awareness of the event, and to secure funding, media coverage as well as high-profile government speakers.

Result: We secured three Ontario Cabinet Ministers to speak at the conference, which received coverage in both local and national media. In addition, we obtained sponsorship dollars for the conference from public and private sector sources. The event successfully raised awareness of the impact that various energy options have on the Great Lakes – both among event attendees and through media coverage, to a much wider audience.

Funding for Non-Profit Sector

We were retained to develop and implement a government relations strategy for a new non-profit organization creating the world’s first online system linking women’s shelters on the web.

Result: Our strategy successfully achieved $1 million in funding from the Ontario government with a major public announcement by the Minister Responsible for Women’s Issues.

Grassroots Initiatives

We were retained to create a grassroots advocacy organization for one of Canada’s leading children’s hospitals made up of parents, former patients, volunteers and hospital staff, aimed at generating awareness and government support of key health care issues.

Result: A network was created in 2003 and has grown to over 200+ members. This network has been involved in a number of public awareness campaigns, including support for government funding of pneumococcal meningitis vaccinations for children in the Ontario Budget

 

What our clients say about us

“In my role as Head of Telephone Banking for CIBC, I retained various search firms to fill important positions within my organization. For a particularly strategic role we had very specific needs. The Jeffery Group was retained after we fired one of the largest search firms in North America for failing miserably at the search. Pam took the time to really understand our needs and brought us candidates that were truly on target. In fact her candidates were so strong that we hired two of them.

Our team really appreciated the effort taken to understand what we were looking for and to use our time well by only presenting credible candidates. The quality of the search works was such that we were able to make offers to two candidates within 12 weeks when another highly reputable firm had failed to bring us even one.

I look forward to working with them again.”

Richard Graham
Former Head of Telephone Banking, CIBC