Arizona Steps Up: Arizona’s Environmental Convening Launch Earns Historic Statewide Coverage

May 13, 2026

People sit in chairs at a press conference

On April 23, leaders from across Arizona gathered on the banks of the Rio Salado with a message that has been years in the making. As ACF President and CEO Anna Maria Chavez said that morning: "The challenge is real. The leadership is here. The time is now."

Arizona's media agreed. What followed was some of the most widespread earned coverage in ACF's history.

The Coverage

Across television, radio, digital, and print, ACF and its partners earned more than two dozen placements reaching hundreds of thousands of people across the Phoenix metro and statewide. The breadth reflects the strength of the cross-sector coalition behind this work and the urgency of the story it is telling.

Television coverage highlights aired on KPNX 12, FOX 10, ABC15, Telemundo Arizona, and Arizona PBS, whose Horizon program featured an in-depth segment on local leaders advocating for heat solutions. Radio audiences across KTAR-FM, KJZZ 91.5FM, and La Onda 99.5FM heard directly from ACF spokespeople across 17 interviews. KJZZ extended the conversation further through two podcast features. The Arizona Republic covered the story in print, completing a full sweep of Arizona's major media platforms.

Together, these placements delivered more than three times ACF's investment in organic media coverage.

Reaching All of Arizona

From the outset, Arizona's Environmental Convening launch was built to speak to every community in Arizona. Telemundo Arizona, La Onda 99.5FM, and Prensa Arizona brought the story to Spanish-speaking Arizonans in their own language. Aden Ramirez led that effort with authenticity and presence across every Spanish-language broadcast and print conversation. For a conference rooted in the belief that no community faces extreme heat alone, that reach matters.

Why It Resonated

"Arizona is a proving ground for extreme heat solutions," Chavez told the crowd assembled at the Nina Mason Pulliam Rio Salado Audubon Center. "What we build here — the models, the partnerships, the community-led innovations — can and should inform the rest of the country, and the world."

That conviction gave reporters something concrete to carry. Arizona's Environmental Convening is not a panel or an awareness event. The cornerstone is action: building relationships between community leaders and funders before anyone walks through the door, centering investment-ready projects, and closing with real funding commitments. Reporters across every platform understood the distinction and told the story clearly.

What was visible on the Rio Salado that morning made it undeniable. On that stretch of land, as Chavez described it: "local government, community leaders, universities, nonprofits, and philanthropy are coming together on something real, tangible, and genuinely achievable. That is not just a story about a riverbank. That is a story about what becomes possible when the right people decide to move together."