Every so often some nonprofit hits the news because of a breakthrough supporter-driven campaign. With the Kony 2012 campaign-turned-phenomenon the organization Invisible Children asked its supporters to bring attention to war criminal Joseph Kony and thus aid in his capture. This summer’s ALS ice bucket challenge became a viral social media phenomenon as it quickly and unexpectedly raised more than $115 million for the ALS Association. We’re not going into the complexities of either of these campaigns here.
Rather, the question is: How do you get your best supporters to help your cause?
In my class on Marketing for Nonprofits and Social Change at the Clinton School of Public Service, we’re using Kivi Leroux Miller’s Nonprofit Marketing Guide. Miller suggests that nonprofits ask fans for help (see more below in section on Heifer). Here are some examples from the students of nonprofits that did that:
KaBOOM!
KaBOOM! is a nonprofit that creates “great playspaces through the participation and leadership of communities. Ultimately, we envision a place to play within walking distance of every child in America.” They started the campaign in 2009 when I was working there and they just started to build up their online community on the KaBOOM! website. They had a simple platform for DIY projects with lots of webinars and resources on how to complete community-built playground projects. They wanted to up the traffic and integrate a unique new tool called the Playground Finder (now, Map of Play), and use their super fans to build it up.
The Playspace Finder/Map of Play was essentially a Google-based map that allowed users to take photos of playgrounds in their neighborhoods and add them to the map. Users made a profile and would get activity points for how many playgrounds they would either pin or photograph, and were encouraged to refer the site to new users. KaBOOM! established an overall goal (something like adding 1,000 playspaces to the map in a month). The users would move up in levels (online profile titles) based on their involvement on the site (play ambassador, play expert, etc.).
To kicked it off, they targeted their biggest fans—mostly past community partners who had completed a KaBOOM! experience with a corporate sponsor or a DIY project. Their build stories were highlighted, they were mentors to new community partners, and they spoke at our conferences or webinars. These impressive, engaged, passionate people kicked off the online Playspace finder by uploading photos and pinning playspaces to the map. They also got their friends and relatives from all over to sign in and post photos. The web content manager constantly interacted with them online, thanking them for their posts, encouraging them to send it to friends, etc. The marketing team, with the web team, were in sync on sending out countdowns (1 week left, 100 playspaces to go, etc.) So there was a group goal (1,000 added) and individual goals for online engagement (reaching play expert, online credit/shout outs) and ultimately, they were creating this tremendous resource that they cared about and could share and access later.
“The Map of Play is both a playground finder and a way to gather data on where playgrounds exist, the condition of existing playgrounds, and where playgrounds are needed, so that we all can participate in improving the state of play in our own communities.” Learn more about the Map of Play and Play Deserts. —Tiffany Jacob
The National Community Pharmacy Association
The National Community Pharmacy Association (NCPA) is a nonprofit organization that hosts an annual tweet-a-thon employing the use of hashtag #Pharmacists on Twitter when describing what a pharmacist can do to help patients and other healthcare providers. NCPA engaged national and state supports from private practice to schools of pharmacy to tweet phrases like, “Talked with a mom about avoiding accidental duplication of prescription and over the counter antihistamines for her daughter #Pharmacist.”
The goal was to raise awareness about the work pharmacists do, and to show the necessity for their occupation. Several organizations also utilized the hashtag #ProviderSstatus to promote legislation that would support pharmacists receiving provider status like their peers in the healthcare industry. This was the second year that NCPA and other pharmacy organizations hosted the event. See here how Arkansas pharmacists, students, and organizations faired against the rest of the country. —Brandon Mathews
Doctors Without Borders
Doctors Without Borders provides emergency medical care worldwide when catastrophic events such as armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition or natural disasters overwhelm local health systems. To raise awareness on the importance of emergency help, they asked their fans to donate their Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn profile for one day. During those 24 hours, the organization would post updates, news facts, photos and videos to their fans profile. —Laetitia Tokplo
UNICEF
In 2013 UNICEF launched an online ad campaign saying “Like us on Facebook, and we will vaccinate zero children against polio.” The ad went viral and the four videos released behind it were viewed more than 750, 000 times from 195 countries with more than 10, 500 tweets during the campaign period. The whole idea behind this concept was that “Likes don’t save lives survival gifts do.” The campaign highlighted the risk of an audience misunderstanding the impact of digital marketing. As a result of this campaign enough money was raised to vaccinate 637, 324 children against polio. Read more in The Guardian and from UNICEF. —Christian Eddings
Heifer International
Heifer International creates most of its supporters or fans by reaching out to charitable individuals and communities, but because it is a large organization Heifer also has fans in the business community.
Heifer International partners with Elanco, a veterinary pharmaceutical company, so that Heifer can deliver healthy animals to communities around the world. Elanco currently has a webpage that clearly links the work it does to ending global poverty. But many people who work for large organizations don’t understand how their office job relates to the positive impact that their company has in the world. Heifer offered Elanco a unique opportunity for their employees to see first hand how their jobs at Elanco made the world a better place. These employees raised funds for a trip to climb Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. Hikers asked for sponsors to donate to Heifer international. Hikers created a lifelong memory of the impact Heifer has already made in Tanzania and Kenya. Hikers brought those memories back to their sponsors and made a uniquely strong connection to a previously untapped giving community.
Kevi Leroux Miller points out that the best way to get fans to do something for your organization is to show them how your organization is doing something for them. Most often an organization valorizes its fans—shows it’s fans how their support makes them heroes. For companies that can be done on an organizational level and even a personal level. The company that sponsors a journey like this receives benefits like team building, employee retention, and a favorable perception of the company. In return Heifer was able to be visible in a totally new way. Ultimately this type of fundraising empowers individuals to become not just fans, but charitable heroes and social movers in their own communities. — Luke Frauenthal
Folding@Home
Folding@Home is a program that “simulates protein folding, computational drug design, and other types of molecular dynamics.” It reached out to fans to have them install their program on various electronic devices they have. The people just have to install and the program works on idle processing power in the background. The lab that created it has “produced 114 scientific research papers as a direct result of Folding@home.” —Hunter Mullins
Water is Life
The Water is Life social media campaign took advantage of the popular Twitter tag #firstworldproblems. The tag was used as a tongue and cheek way to complain about the little annoyances of living in a developed country. The tag marked tweets ripping about forgetting the names of hired maids, leaving your cellphone upstairs and not being able to use your neighbor’s Wi-Fi due to passwords. Water is Life turned the idea on its head when they released a video and social media campaign portraying citizens of Haiti reading these tweets. The campaign went viral and the message was driven home: although problems of the first world cannot compare to those of the third world, there are simple ways to help. Through this campaign, the organization mobilized its fans to use the twitter tag to reach others who were using the tag merely for comedic purposes. —Matt Caston
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