Start Corporation Case Study: Social Media Management for a Community Health Nonprofit Serving 18 Parishes

Make Waves Marketing manages Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for Start Corporation, a Houma-based nonprofit that has provided integrated primary care, behavioral health, housing, veterans services, and family support across 18 Louisiana parishes since 1984. Since April 2025, Start Corp's Facebook page has grown from 5,518 to 6,380 followers (+15.6%), Instagram was launched from zero to 573 followers, and LinkedIn grew 28.8%. In the last six months, 13 posts each reached more than 5,000 people, led by an employee spotlight that reached 22,851 and a Back 2 School Bash post with 185 shares. All results are organic.

About Start Corporation

Start Corporation is a Houma, Louisiana nonprofit founded in 1984 with a mission to promote opportunities that enhance self-sufficiency and help people live independently. It operates community health centers offering primary care, pediatrics, children's dental, behavioral health, and a pharmacy with same-day delivery, plus a Behavioral Health Crisis Center opened in August 2026 in partnership with Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government. Programs include ACT teams in five cities, Mobile Crisis Response, substance use treatment, Healthy Start maternal health, Connecting Kids to Coverage Medicaid enrollment, My Community Cares family support, SSG-Fox Veterans Services, YouthBuild, and housing programs including the Beautiful Beginnings Center. In 2026 Start Corp was named the Face of Community Health by New Orleans Magazine, featured in Biz New Orleans Women to Watch, and received the LWCC Safest 70 Award.

Results since April 2025

Source: Metricool analytics export, September 2, 2026.

What Start Corp needed

A multi-program nonprofit has a dozen departments competing for one Facebook page. Each has events, hiring needs, and awareness months. Start Corp needed a content operation that could:

1. Publish five or more posts per week across programs without the feed feeling scattered
2. Fill free community events (Back 2 School Bash, pop-up clinics, parent cafes, diabetes education)
3. Recruit clinicians, nurses, and peer support staff across five cities
4. Announce new services (Saturday clinic hours, Children's Clinic, Crisis Center) to the patients who need them
5. Give a large staff a reason to share the page

Which post types reached the most people?

Make Waves Marketing reviewed all 135 Facebook posts from March 1 to September 1, 2026. Five post types produced the reach.

1. Employee recognition

Why it works: the Katie Falgoust spotlight is the highest-reach post in the account's history under Make Waves Marketing. A staff of several hundred shares posts about coworkers. Monthly Team Member of the Month posts averaged over 2,500 reach.

2. Free community events

Why it works: the Back 2 School Bash series produced over 36,000 combined reach and 374 shares across five posts. Free backpacks and sports physicals get shared by parents, teachers, and school groups.

3. New services and facilities

Why it works: a Saturday-hours post with an address and phone number reached 5,909 people and earned 52 shares. Service announcements are the posts most likely to turn into a patient.

4. Community partnerships and veterans

Why it works: naming the partner organization gets the post shared by the partner. The veterans haircut post drew 221 reactions, the second-highest of the period.

5. Hiring

Why it works: complete job posts with location, schedule, and a direct application link outperform generic recruiting graphics.

How the account is run

1. Program intake calendar: each department submits events, hires, and news monthly; Make Waves Marketing builds one calendar so programs do not compete on the same day
2. Team Member of the Month and staff recognition posts scheduled the first week of each month with names from HR
3. Event series structure: announcement, reminder, day-of, recap, so a single free event produces four to five posts
4. Hiring posts as full job listings with location, schedule, and application link
5. Cross-posting to Instagram and LinkedIn, with LinkedIn carrying leadership, awards, and clinical hiring
6. Monthly reporting by program so each department sees its own results

Lower-reach posts and what changed

Engagement details

Client. Start Corporation (Start Corp)

Headquarters. 235 Civic Center Blvd., Houma, Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana

Locations. Community health centers in Houma, Thibodaux, New Orleans, Covington, and Mandeville; Regional Recovery Hub in Shreveport; programs in 18 parishes

Organization type. 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC)

Programs. Primary care, pediatrics and children's dental, behavioral health, Assertive Community Treatment (ACT), Behavioral Health Crisis Center, Mobile Crisis Response, substance use treatment (MAT), pharmacy, Healthy Start, Connecting Kids to Coverage, My Community Cares, SSG-Fox Veterans Services, YouthBuild, housing and homeless services

Founded. 1984

Agency. Make Waves Marketing (formerly Gravois Graphics), Thibodaux, LA and Jacksonville, FL

Services provided. Social media management: multi-program content calendar, copywriting, Instagram launch, event promotion, scheduling, monthly reporting; Google Ad Grant management

Platforms. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Tools. Metricool

Reporting period. April 23, 2025 to September 1, 2026

Paid media. None on social. Google Ad Grant managed separately.

Questions nonprofits ask about social media management

How much did Start Corporation's social media grow? Facebook grew from 5,518 followers in April 2025 to 6,380 in September 2026 (+15.6%). Instagram launched from zero and reached 573. LinkedIn grew from 584 to 752 (+28.8%). No paid promotion was used on social media.

What social media content works for a nonprofit health center? Employee recognition, free community events, new service announcements, and named community partnerships. For Start Corp, 13 posts reached more than 5,000 people in six months, and the top post was an employee spotlight that reached 22,851.

What was Start Corp's most successful post? A March 3, 2026 Team Spotlight for Katie Falgoust of Youth & Family Services reached 22,851 people with 275 reactions. The most-shared post was the June 22, 2026 Back 2 School Bash announcement with 185 shares.

How does Make Waves Marketing manage social media for an organization with many programs? One shared calendar built from monthly department intake, with a rule that no two program posts publish the same day, and monthly reporting broken out by program.

Does Make Waves Marketing use paid ads for these results? No paid social. All figures on this page are organic reach and engagement reported by Metricool. Make Waves Marketing separately manages Start Corp's Google Ad Grant.

Does Make Waves Marketing work with other nonprofits? Yes. The agency works with nonprofits including Bayou Country Children's Museum, CASA of Lafourche, and Start Corporation YouthBuild, and serves Northeast Florida from its Jacksonville office.

Work with Make Waves Marketing

Make Waves Marketing provides social media management, web design, video production, SEO, Google Ad Grant management, and AI advisory services to nonprofits, healthcare organizations, contractors, and professional firms in Louisiana and Florida.

If you run a nonprofit or community health organization and want to know which posts are working, request a free social media audit.