Here are more examples from around the world of where creativity has helped charities get the attention and funding they need.
6. Charity: water
Charity: water was born just three years ago when one guy somewhere in the USA decided to give up his birthday for building wells in Africa. Since then charity: water has grown into global proportions through word of mouth, advertising on TV and in print, interesting events and exhibitions, and social media.
As they got bigger and bigger, they caught attention of a few celebrities, such as Will and Jada Smith, and tadadada: the campaign for the year 2010 was born. Will and Jada encouraged people to donate as much as they can on the charity: water web pages as the 3 top fundraisers will take a trip to Africa with them. This video was published on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and gained online coverage on Mashable and various blogs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG5PdqvEEfg
7. The Lazarus Effect Campaign
In 2010, (RED) joined forces with numerous celebrities to raise awareness about the power of two white pills of antiretroviral medicine (ARVs) that can save people’s lives and costs mere 40 cents (20 pence!) They launched their campaign by uploading videos where celebrities showed various things you can get for 40 cents and how banal and unnecessary they are compare to the medicine.
Comparison and celebrities are usually a good recipe for a successful campaign but (RED) didn’t stop just there. They developed an iPad app that allows people to watch a Lazarus Effect documentary, which was originally aired on HBO, with extra information about the life of every single person featured and how to get involved.
Plus, (RED) established a Twitter and Facebook account to not only spread the message and share success stories, but also to provide people with live-streaming of some of their events such as the premiere of “The Lazarus Effect” film in New York. This made people feel as a part of the whole thing and encouraged them to get even more involved.
8. BeatBullying: “You Can Speak Out Now”
BeatBullying is fighting against one of those things that most people can relate to: bullying. Although some people may claim that the readability of the issue made their job easier, it takes more than that to create an award-winning campaign.
When “You Can Speak Out Now” campaign was launched, BeatBullying had a very clear vision of what they wanted to achieve. The first objective was to generate enough traffic to their CyberMentors website, a 24/7 mentoring and counseling service for young people dealing with bullying. The other one was to attract the attention of media, sponsors and public and gain enough support for its initiative.
The whole campaign evolved around an eye-catching ad called You Can Speak Out Now featuring a young girl with her mouth sewed shut. This ad appeared on TV, in cinemas and posters, various publications and online sites such as YouTube, where it generated more than 220,000 views for Beatbullying’s videos.
The result? Beatbullying recorded a 700 per cent increase in the number of people interested in counselling, a 600 per cent in counselling interactions, and 230 per cent in mentoring interactions. Moreover, the number of trained cybermentors was raised by 90 per cent. All of this thanks to effective media relations, communication strategy and interesting ad. Pretty impressive, isn’t it?
It all started with the suicide of a teenager who was bullied about being gay. Some people were horrified, some didn’t care, and some decided to do something about it. One of the most active ones was Dan Savage, sex columnist and gay rights activist. He decided to send a positive message via YouTube to all of those who were bullied because of their sexuality and reassure them that “It Gets Better”.
It didn’t take long for this video to go viral. Bloggers, vloggers, and famous celebrities, such as Ian Somerhalder, Kristin Cavallari, Anne Hathaway, or Barack Obama, added to it by creating their own encouraging videos, blog posts or pictures that spread all over the web. Webpages were created, Facebook and Twitter accounts established, stories shared, and donations made. Some of the videos were featured on various TV channels and mentioned in the print media.
Overall, the campaign moved hearts and minds of million people all over the world and helped those who were bullied to find strength to carry on. Sometimes a genuine message and access to the internet is all you need.
To Mama with Love is another example showing that even a low-budget campaign can reach many people by using social media and a bit of creativity.
Epic Change dived into this campaign on Mother’s Day 2010 with one straight-forward aim: to raise money to support Mama Lucy in her efforts to educate children in Tanzania.
To achieve that, Epic Change created a virtual scrapbook or “hearspace” on their webpages and anyone who donated could customize this space by using various photos, videos and notes. They could then send this piece of art to their mothers as an e-card, or share it with friends and family via Twitter or Facebook.
Thanks to their approach and integration of social media, Epic Change managed to raise nearly £15,000 and provide a safe home for 17 children in Tanzania. Plus, they encouraged more than 300 mothers to join the initiative. Just to put it out there, this week long campaign was managed by two people only.
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