PROJECT FOCUS
Building a Continuum from Education to Independence
What began as a strategic planning engagement with Focus Academy in 2021 has grown into a long-term partnership with Project Focus, helping the organization connect education, adult services, workforce preparation, community engagement and an increasingly ambitious vision for people with developmental disabilities across Tampa Bay.
HCP Associates has worked alongside Project Focus not simply as a marketing firm, but as a strategic partner supporting research, planning, organizational development, communications, community engagement, leadership recruitment and long-term growth.
Project Focus Foundation
Nonprofit / Community Advocacy
Education / Disability Services / Workforce Development / Community Services
Students & Young Adults • Families & Caregivers • Donors • Employers • Educators • Foundations • Community Leaders • Public Agencies
Focus Academy • Focus Day School • Focus Forward • Workforce Readiness • Focus Café • Focus Future
2026 Silver Telly Award – General / Live Events & Experiences – Project Focus Foundation Annual Gala
Executive Summary
HCP Associates began working with Focus Academy in April 2021, initially leading strategic planning sessions with their board, leadership interviews, and research into community organizations, partnerships and opportunities throughout Tampa Bay.
At the time, the immediate need was to help more people understand an educational model designed specifically for students with cognitive and developmental disabilities. As the organization expanded, however, the assignment became much broader.
Focus Academy was only one part of a growing continuum. New programs were being developed for younger students, young adults, workforce preparation and adult life skills, while Project Focus increasingly became the umbrella organization connecting those efforts.
HCP’s role evolved with that growth. In addition to brand development and communications, the firm has supported strategic planning, research, organizational positioning, community engagement, public relations, fundraising initiatives, executive recruitment and the development of internal communications capacity.
Rather than creating a model in which Project Focus remained dependent on an outside agency for every social post, news item or marketing task, HCP helped the organization recruit and engage internal talent capable of managing daily execution while continuing to provide senior-level strategy and counsel.
The relationship became less about marketing individual programs and more about helping leadership build the organization required to support a much larger mission.
Josephine Isenbergh
Founder, Focus Academy
Understanding the Landscape
Focus Academy was created around the recognition that students with cognitive and developmental disabilities often need more than traditional academics. Social development, therapeutic support, practical life skills, self-advocacy and preparation for adulthood all need to be part of the educational experience.
As students progressed through the school, another challenge became increasingly apparent. The need for support did not end at graduation.
Families were facing questions involving employment, transportation, social connection, adult services, independent living and meaningful participation in the larger community. Project Focus began developing programs designed to address those transitions rather than treating education and adulthood as separate worlds.
The organization also recognized the importance of beginning earlier. In 2025, Focus Day School opened in Temple Terrace to serve students in grades three (3) through six (6) with learning and developmental disabilities, extending the Focus philosophy to younger children and creating a more complete educational pathway.
At the same time, Focus Forward, workforce-readiness programming and other adult initiatives were expanding opportunities beyond the classroom.
What had started with one school was becoming a continuum designed to support individuals across multiple stages of life.
Research
HCP’s work began with strategic planning and research involving Focus leadership, families, community organizations and the broader Tampa Bay environment in which the organization operated.
That process helped identify both opportunities and challenges. Individual programs could be successful on their own, but families, donors, employers, community leaders and other stakeholders needed to understand how those programs connected.
A parent might first encounter Focus through a school. A young adult might enter through workforce training or adult programming. A donor might learn about Project Focus through fundraising or community advocacy.
The strategic challenge was to create a larger story that made sense of all of those entry points.
That story ultimately centered on the connection between education and life beyond the classroom.
Strategy
HCP helped organize the growing family of programs around a broader positioning:
Where Education Meets Life.℠
The idea reflected the transition at the heart of Project Focus, from academics to practical experience, from school to employment, and from structured support toward greater independence.
It also gave the organization room to grow without forcing every new program to stand on its own.
HCP worked with leadership to strengthen Project Focus as the umbrella organization while creating clearer positioning, messaging and communications for Focus Academy and the expanding family of programs. That work included strategic planning, brand development, digital strategy, community engagement, public relations and organizational consulting.
As the organization grew, the strategy increasingly focused on institutional capacity as well. HCP assisted with executive recruitment and helped leadership build an internal team capable of handling routine communications and marketing responsibilities while preserving HCP’s role as a senior strategic resource.
The objective was not to build dependence on an agency. It was to help build a stronger organization.
Marketing and Communications
HCP translated the strategy into an integrated communications platform that could evolve alongside Project Focus.
That work has included brand identities, websites, digital communications, public relations, social media strategy, media outreach, fundraising communications, event support and community engagement. HCP also helped create media resources and digital press materials that allow journalists, donors, partners and other stakeholders to better understand the organization and its programs.
As Focus Day School was introduced, communications helped explain how the new school fit within the larger Focus continuum rather than presenting it as an unrelated initiative.
Public relations similarly evolved beyond routine announcements. Program expansion, workforce opportunities, community partnerships, leadership developments and the organization’s long-term campus vision all became part of a larger narrative about addressing the needs of people with developmental disabilities across an entire lifetime.
HCP has also supported Project Focus’s signature annual gala through strategy, creative development, communications and live-event production. In 2026, that work earned a Silver Telly Award in the General / Live Events & Experiences category.
The award recognized the execution of the event, but the larger value of the gala is its role in building awareness, relationships and financial support for the organization’s future.
Building Leadership and Internal Capacity
As Project Focus expanded, its internal structure needed to grow with it.
HCP assisted the organization with executive recruitment and leadership development while helping define roles that could move more communications and marketing execution in-house.
That shift has been important to the relationship.
HCP continues to provide research, strategic planning, positioning, public relations counsel, community engagement and guidance around major initiatives, while internal team members increasingly manage the daily rhythm of news, social media, marketing and program communications.
For Project Focus, that creates greater organizational capacity.
For HCP, it keeps the relationship focused where it can provide the greatest value.
Focus Day School
The opening of Focus Day School marked an important expansion of the Project Focus continuum.
The new private school in Temple Terrace serves students in grades three (3) through six (6) with learning and developmental disabilities, allowing families to access the Focus educational philosophy at an earlier stage.
Beginning earlier creates more time to develop confidence, self-advocacy, social-emotional skills, learning strategies and independence before students enter middle and high school.
It also strengthens the larger Project Focus model by extending the pathway from elementary education through transition programming and adulthood.
Focus Future
The most ambitious expression of Project Focus’s vision is still ahead.
The organization is pursuing plans for an inclusive campus in the Tampa Bay area that would bring education, workforce development, residential opportunities and community amenities together in one environment.
Current plans envision approximately 156,000 square feet of facilities across an estimated 8-to-10-acre site, with an overall development cost projected at approximately $60 million to $70 million.
The campus would include expanded educational space, workforce training facilities, residential components, community amenities and other resources designed to support individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities.
The concept is intentionally larger than a school or residential development. Project Focus describes the vision as a “community within the community,” designed to create greater independence while maintaining meaningful connections to employment, transportation, recreation and the broader Tampa Bay community.
The project represents a dramatic expansion from the organization HCP first began working with in 2021, and it has increasingly shaped the way Project Focus communicates with donors, partners, civic leaders and the community.
Community Engagement
Community relationships have been central to the organization’s growth.
HCP has helped Project Focus expand visibility and engagement through media relations, stakeholder outreach, community partnerships, fundraising events and opportunities that connect students and adults with employers, nonprofits, cultural organizations and other Tampa Bay institutions.
Those relationships serve more than a communications purpose. They create opportunities for employment, experience, advocacy, fundraising and long-term collaboration.
As Project Focus moves toward the development of a major new campus, that network of relationships becomes even more important. A project of this scale will depend on philanthropy, public-private partnerships, community support and sustained engagement with leaders throughout the region.
Impact
Since 2021, the HCP relationship with Project Focus has evolved from an initial strategic planning assignment into a broader institutional partnership.
HCP has helped leadership conduct research, clarify organizational strategy, strengthen the Project Focus brand, connect a growing family of programs, expand public awareness, build community relationships, recruit leadership, increase internal communications capacity and support major fundraising and public-relations initiatives.
During that same period, Project Focus has expanded its reach significantly. Focus Day School extended services to younger students, Focus Academy continued serving middle-school, high-school and transition-age students, adult and workforce programs created new opportunities beyond graduation, and Focus Future introduced a long-term vision for an integrated multimillion-dollar campus.
The scale of the organization has changed substantially. HCP’s role has changed with it.
Today, the relationship is less about functioning as an outsourced marketing department and more about helping leadership think through the organization’s next stage, where it should grow, how its programs should connect, how it engages the community, what internal capabilities it needs and how its larger vision can be communicated and supported.
What We Learned
The most valuable consulting relationships do not necessarily result in the client needing more consulting.
Sometimes the better outcome is helping an organization become stronger internally.
That has been an important part of the Project Focus relationship. HCP could have remained responsible for every press release, social post, website update and daily marketing task. Instead, the work evolved toward helping Project Focus develop the people, structure and internal capacity to handle more of those responsibilities itself.
That allowed HCP to remain focused on the areas where outside perspective can have greater value: research, strategic planning, organizational positioning, community engagement, leadership counsel and major initiatives.
What began as work for one school now supports an organization whose vision stretches from elementary education through adulthood, workforce participation, independent living and the development of a major new campus.
That is a very different relationship from a traditional agency engagement.
And that is exactly what it should be.