Agencies · Higher Education · Public Programs

Institutional services.

Most institutions do not have a content problem. They have a coherence problem that shows up as a content problem. The strategic plan says one thing, the website says another, and the person answering the phone says a third. Every version was written by someone competent. Together they do not add up.

GlowStrm does the message-clarity work that has to happen before content, campaigns, or public engagement. These are the services scoped for departments, programs, and agencies, with pricing structured so you can see where an engagement lands before you start a requisition.

Virginia eVA-registered Black woman-owned NAICS 541613 Richmond, VA · virtual nationwide

How the work is structured

Benchmark. Build. Re-measure.

These three services are one cycle, and each is purchasable on its own. You establish a benchmark before the work, you do the work, and you measure against the benchmark afterward. Most communications work skips the first and the third, which is why so much of it can never say whether it worked.

01
Baseline Read

What your institution is actually saying right now, who it is reaching, and whether your own evidence can tell you.

02
Message Architecture™ Build

One document your whole institution writes from. The core message, the audiences it has to reach, and the rules that keep everyone saying it the same way.

03
Progress Read

The same read taken again, so what moved is a number you can put in a report instead of a feeling you have to defend.

Services and pricing

What you can buy.

Every figure below is built from counted hours at a single rate. Nothing here is priced backward from a purchasing threshold. Where a service shows a starting figure, that is a floor and not an estimate. Where it says priced to scope, the shape of the work varies too much to name a floor honestly, so we quote it after a conversation.

Start here · no cost

Institutional Clarity Audit

Five dimensions, ten questions, about three minutes. Answer for your team, program, department, or agency and see where your message is leaking before you spend anything.

No cost

Results sent by email

01 · Benchmark

Baseline Read

An independent read of what your institution is communicating right now and to whom. You find out which messages are actually landing, which audiences are hearing a different version than you think they are, and whether your own data can tell you either way.

You receive A written baseline with the gaps named and located, plus a live readout with your team. This becomes the benchmark every later measurement is taken against.

Starting at
$7,920

Priced to scope.
See how pricing works below.

02 · The blueprint

Message Architecture™ Build

Every architect charges for the blueprint before a single nail goes in. Not because the paper is expensive, but because everything built without one is guesswork. The Build is that document for your communications, and in an institution it matters more than anywhere else, because the people writing on your behalf are a dozen offices, an outside vendor, and whoever updates the site.

Seven deliverables. One document. Built with you, not handed to a team you will never meet.

Priced to scope

Quoted after intake, at the same hourly rate as every service on this page. The Build is sized to how many offices write on your behalf, so it is scoped with you rather than assumed.

Foundation
01Core Message StatementThe one thing your publics have to understand first, clear enough to survive being repeated by someone who does not work in communications.
02Audience Insight MapWho you are actually speaking to, what they believe before, and what they need to believe after.
03Message HierarchyPrimary messages and proof organized so the most important thing always leads, whoever is doing the leading.
Execution
04Language GuardrailsPhrases to use and phrases to retire, documented for every office and vendor writing on your behalf.
05Voice CharacteristicsHow the message sounds, with examples, so contracted writers hand back something you do not have to rewrite.
06Application GuidanceHow to use the document across content, campaigns, public information, and vendor briefs.
07The Living BriefA working file with a version log, revisited as the program changes. Not filed away when the engagement ends.

03 · Re-measure

Progress Read

The Baseline Read taken again, once the Build has had time to move through your channels. You get a clear account of what shifted, what did not, and what the non-movement is actually made of.

You receive A written comparison against the baseline showing what moved, what did not, and what the non-movement is actually made of.

Starting at
$4,320

Priced to scope.
Requires a prior Baseline Read.

Standalone · no cycle required · configured with you

Departmental Workshop

A facilitated working session for a single department or program team. Four to six hours in the room, built on your own communications rather than a generic curriculum — configured from four modules, taken alone or in combination.

  • 1Message alignment — one institutional voice, found together in the room. Runs as Where’s the Gap?
  • 2Plain language & accessibility — Section 508–ready training for the people who write on your behalf. Runs as Clear & Accessible
  • 3Business writing foundations — what strong business writing looks like, and how your team recognizes and produces it.
  • 4AI in the writing process — building the tech into your process: draft, refine, polish, with your standards intact.

You receive A working session your team participates in rather than watches, prepared materials built from your own communications, and the module mix scoped to your team.

Priced to scope

A workshop is sized by team size, how much material we read beforehand, and time in the room. Quoted after a short conversation.

How pricing works

Every engagement is quoted at the same hourly rate. The only thing that moves is how many hours the work takes, and that depends almost entirely on the condition of what you hand over at intake. An institution that arrives organized starts at the floor. One that hands over scattered materials across a dozen owners with no inventory takes more hours, because reconstructing that record is real work. Where a service shows a starting figure, that is the floor for an institution that arrives organized, not an average.

You get the number in writing before the work begins, not after. Because the rate never changes, a scope change and a price change are the same conversation. There are no change orders and no hourly surprises.

For your purchasing office

Buying this.

GlowStrm, LLC is a Virginia limited liability company registered in eVA, the Commonwealth's statewide eProcurement system. Services are quoted at a single hourly rate, so a scope change and a price change are the same conversation.

Entity
GlowStrm, LLCVirginia · Black woman-owned
Primary NAICS
541613Marketing consulting services
eVA
RegisteredCommonwealth of Virginia
SWaM
In processDSBSD certification pending, not yet issued
Delivery
Virtual or on-siteRichmond region on-site; virtual nationwide
Contact
northnode@glowstrm.com804-753-7570
On thresholds

Purchasing rules differ by institution, so the prices above are not designed around any one agency's limits. Tell us the threshold your department is working under and we will tell you plainly whether a scope fits inside it, including when the honest answer is that it does not and the work should go out for quotation instead.

Next step

Start with the gap.

The audit takes about three minutes and costs nothing. It will tell you which of the five dimensions is leaking, which is usually enough to know whether you need a Baseline Read or something narrower. If you would rather just talk, that works too.

Take the audit → Talk to Sharéa