Federal science and our country is facing a crisis. In the past 18 months, more than 100,000 federal science employees have been lost, millions of dollars of science funding were slashed and key programs were halted, all damaging the federal government’s ability to protect public health and provide essential services. Unfortunately, the work of the federal government is often unseen and many of the people who are most impacted by these actions are unaware of the potential consequences to themselves and their communities.
To raise awareness about these issues, the Partnership for Public Service set out to reach people with data, context and compelling stories of how federal science serves them and highlight the ways diminished federal science directly impact their lives. This campaign sought to increase the public’s understanding of the role federal science plays in their lives, decrease public support for indiscriminate cuts to federal science and increase support for federal science workers. These goals support our long term effort to build public commitment and support for more effective government that serves the public good.
Shortly after the presidential inauguration in January 2025, the new administration began taking dramatic, unilateral and indiscriminate actions to slash federal personnel, funding and programs. The Partnership, with our deep experience in working on federal management issues, knew that the haphazard nature of these actions presented real and dangerous consequences for the public. We also knew from our years of research that many members of the public would be unlikely to hear about these changes to government or know how such cuts would impact them. These events were also taking place while the media environment continues to shift, and social and nontraditional platforms have become primary sources of information for many Americans.
These dynamics led us to build a plan to better engage the public and deepen understanding of the essential role federal public servants play in keeping the country healthy, safe, and prosperous. Given the criticality of the science work taken at the federal level, we decided to focus our public engagement efforts on federal science activities.
At the outset, we developed a strategy and execution plan grounded in public polling, audience research, message testing and federal data and stories. In 2025, we conducted message testing and public polling to understand the state of public knowledge and perception about federal science and federal cuts and to identify which issue areas and narratives resonate most strongly with the public. These insights directly shaped our content strategy, helping us prioritize stories and messages that highlight the real-world benefits of federal science and identify the types of messengers most likely to reach skeptical or disengaged audiences. We built a multi-channel communications campaign that brought together social media (both owned channels and creator partnerships), traditional media, thought leadership and trusted messengers to accomplish our campaign goals. We knew that to effectively engage and educate the public, we first needed to fully document and translate how decisions made at the national level about funding and staffing levels have an impact beyond Washington, D.C. To this end, we launched the Federal Harms Tracker, a data and storytelling project that highlights the harms of the administration’s efforts to unilaterally dismantle the federal government. Stories and data uncovered through the Federal Harms Tracker also serve to reinforce and complement our social media content, trusted messenger collaborations and traditional media outreach.
Over the course of this initiative, the team had to overcome significant challenges. Some of the most important sources of information about what is happening in the federal government and the consequences of those changes are current and former federal employees. However, many federal employees, even after leaving federal service, are worried about potential consequences for themselves, their former colleagues or their federal programs if they speak out and we needed to created multiple avenues for these individuals to participate. The federal government is also a very complex system and has required our team to be very diligent about unraveling data and information to explain the impact of federal science in accessible and persuasive ways.
The Partnership first started studying public perception of the federal government in 2021. Earlier this year, almost a year after we first began this campaign, we fielded our annual nationally representative survey and found that public views of civil servants had reached new highs. Agreement on two key questions that we use to assess public views of civil servants were up ten points from when we first started polling in 2021. For the question, “Most civil servants are committed to helping people like me” 50% agreed in 2021 and 61% agree in 2026. For the question, “Most civil servants are competent” 55% agreed in 2021 and 65% agree in 2026. These results demonstrate that awareness and support for civil servants is shifting in really positive directions.
Furthermore, campaign content on social media has exceeded 1.5 million impressions. We have collaborated with over 30 national and local organizations, our thought leadership products have garnered more than 80,000 views since June 2025 and our work has been cited in 40 national news stories.
Combined, these results demonstrate that our work to improve awareness and support for federal science work and workers is making a difference.
