Posts Tagged ‘nonprofit communication’

Blood Donation Campaign: Torrent your Blood


2012
04.04

I just found an interesting way of distribution to promote a blood donation campaign: torrents! It’s the first one I see using this kind of technology. The smart aspect of the campaign is the approach of finding functioning similarities between web technologies and real life needs like blood donation. It is the concept of « sharing what you have, as yourself may one day need help ».

Of course the campaign is not only based on a short film announced in the main review site and available to download free of charge, its combined with a micro site, trailers and social promotion.

Torrent Your Blood from SmartNewSolutions on Vimeo.

 

Source: DigitalBuzz Blog

Notes from the « Networked Nonprofit » conference – Social Media Week Paris


2012
02.20

 

Hi guys, I am creating a new category special events!
I am going to share with you some notes and feedback form events, workshops or other I’ll intend. And what a  better way to inaugurate it than the social media week ;)

So last week I was at the conference named “Networked Nonprofit” – How social web transform humanitarian action?

We can observe that engagement has changed, people take initiatives on the internet through facebook fan pages or comments for examples. Organizations decided to deal and interact with them in adapting their communication strategies and tools. Advices and examples below :)

Contents:

- Speakers
- New volunteers engagement and Internet – Introduction by Edouard Jacquet
- Networked Nonprofit by Beth Kanter (interviewed by Frédéric Bardeau) – Video
- Facebook heart of the system by Yves Colin – Fondation Abbé Pierre
- Social networks allow a humanization of organizations by Sabrina Haddadi – Chaine de l’espoir
- Stronghold and social networks a complex relation by Kevin Clech  – French Red Cross
- Web strategy adapted to their public by Jonathan Debauve –CPCA
- Extra – Social Medias, lobbying and press relations

 

Speakers

- Kevin Clech, Croix-Rouge Française : www.croix-rouge.fr / @kclech
- Sabrina Haddadi, La Chaine de l’Espoir : www.chainedelespoir.org
- Beth Kanter (Skype Interview), Auteur of « Networked Nonprofit » : www.bethkanter.org / @Kanter
- Frédéric Bardeau, Agence LIMITE : agence-limite.fr /@fbardeau
- Yves Colin, Fondation Abbé-Pierre : www.fondation-abbe-pierre.fr / @Yves78
- Jonathan Debauve, Conférence Permanente des Coordinations Associatives (CPCA) : cpca.asso.fr, www.depuis1901.fr / @jdebauve
- Edouard Jacquet, Gullibear : www.gullibear.com / @jcktt

 

New volunteers engagement and Internet – Introduction by Edouard Jacquet

At the end of the 1990s there were some interrogations concerning militancy. There is no end at it. They are still there, probably because people put their faith in the associative sector, knowing that it’s an actor of change more than politics.

The engagement nature has change, it is more occasional and internet is a good way to handle it.

It’s more interesting to base the communication on militants who can spread the word than spread ourselves too thin. It also affects how associations communicate from a centralized way (a message to determine interlocutors) to a decentralized way. It’s true that they don’t control the message, but it can reach more people.


The first contact with an association is essential; the public has to know how they can help.

Moreover a lot of volunteers take initiatives on the web like fan pages or Facebook groups. So the question is how organizations can manage and interact with them?

 

Networked Nonprofit by Beth Kanter (interviewed by Frédéric Bardeau)


Interview de Beth Kanter sur les « Networked… par agence_limite

The 1990s seems to be an important time for nonprofit organizations. For Beth Kanter it was the moment when NGO decided to invest the web through emails. Those NGOs are more inclined to evolve with technologies.

There are two types of organizations, those created with internet and strongholds more traditional, very structured where you need 6 months to create a press release or where it’s quite difficult to create changes for examples. Activist organizations are more adaptable and able to evolve because they’re originally networked. On the other side, area like health care can’t adapt easily due to confidentiality.

For Beth Kanter, organizations need to evolve slowly through 4 baby steps: « Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly ».
If they have fears or concerned about internet, web evolutions, etc. NGO need to think about it because « You have to be before you do ».
Simplicity is the key word!

The organization’s communication strategy requires concrete objectives and to use different channels. The important point is that social medias has to be integrated in the communication strategy!

Concerning engagement, people are not convinced at the first place and at the same time. So the communication strategy needs to include several steps to convince (interpellations, discussions, etc.). However, « supporters base » is an important element in communication and fundraising strategies, with the good training they are awesome fundraisers and spokespersons.

 

Facebook heart of the system by Yves Colin – Fondation Abbé Pierre

This year, Fondation Abbé Pierre celebrated its 20th anniversary! The foundation is acting for accommodation through public interpellations, feed with its actions in the field.

Its communication strategy is to assume the founder identity with rants in interpellatif ways and militant guerrilla.

For the campaign « mobilisation générale pour le logement » the strategy was built on a two year period through four steps:

1 / carton rouge – Nov 2010 – Juill 2011
2/ A webdoc wich recieved several prices like « Prix Europa 2011 » and « Grand Prix Communication & Entreprise 2011 » – « A l’abri de rien »
+ 100 000 views and approximately 20 minutes spent each time
3/ launching of the civilian mobilization call for accommodations
Objectif 400 000 signatures
4/ 1st February 2012 – accommodation day
Presentation of the official report
Propose to sign a social contract for accommodation engagements
Hope – presidential candidates will sign it

Impact on social networks
- Facebook: strong evolution of the militant base
sept.2011 to feb.2012: +8000 to +180 000
- Twitter: important evolution, but needs to be stabilize – direct tool
sept.2011 to feb.2012: +2000 to +11 000

They observed that the activity augmented when there was an event. So social networks are the guiding lights and support to the campaign. However, events, people and press relations stay central!»

 

Social networks allow a humanization of organizations by Sabrina Haddadi – Chaine de l’espoir

Chaine de l’espoir is an organization which works for children through education and surgery with children send in France for surgery, field missions, training and equipment.

Storytelling is the base of the communication strategy. The objective is raising funds. They socialize their website through share buttons and kids’ stories.

The interesting point is how people naturally socialise the organisation through social media:
- Surgeons in the field share stories and exchange with their former patients through their personal accounts.
- After a documentary about two children travelling to another state for a surgery, one unfortunately died. Immediately people went on the facebook page to support the team and families. The surgeon responded to comments with its personal account.
- Foster families can create a blog from the Chaine de l’espoir website to share their stories.

The digital strategy speaks to all people who communicate naturally. So the organization capitalized on their community natural communication to humanize its brand.

 

Stronghold and social networks a complex relation by Kevin Clech  – French Red Cross

The French Red Cross will celebrate its 150 anniversary in 2014! That is quite an old lady! The central principle is neutrality, which is quite delicate with social medias.

The main difficulty for the web part is that everyone knows the Red-Cross, but no one really knows it. There are several missions in France and the International Field. This diversity is quite difficult to manage and to keep people interested because they are more interested in areas like international actions or « maraude ».

The organization started on social networks with specific campaigns, but didn’t do anything with it after the end. The changes are happening, but they are slow, it takes time for this type of organization.
The activity peak is more important during disasters

Moreover they have 17000 people working for the organization in France, 50 000 volunteers who are taking possession of the web. They count on professionals and citizen actor to communicate.

 

Web strategy adapted to their public by Jonathan Debauve –CPCA

The organization represents associations in France, but found some difficulties to communicate with them. Moreover, little associations don’t have tools to preach for their cause.

So CPCA decided to divide their communication in creating two websites: one more institutional for associations’ directors and another for the public.

The website for the public they started with social medias and then created the website.

 

Extra – Social Medias, lobbying and press relations

Organizations don’t use social medias for lobbying or interacting with politics. It’s a « private process » through networks, one to one exchanges.

However, you can’t have an influence on politics if you aren’t recognized and sustain by the public. So social media can be a tool to build influence, but it’s not a direct lobbying tool. Besides, you need to be someone to influence directly a political man like the director of Human Rights Watch when he called out Alain Jupé before his trip to Birmany.

Concerning press relations, Twitter is a good place to exchange with the new generation of journalists, like those specialized in the nonprofit sector as Youphil. It’s more an exchange, which takes time to create a link and there is no direct impact. You have to be patient.
You can follow the event on twitter with #SMWnetworkedNPO and #networkedNPO

 

The lottery of life – what if you weren’t born here?


2011
01.10

For this new year I wanted to share with you a great campaign created by Lowe Brindfors – Sweden for Save the children UK.

In a fist place we can consider the internal organization. They chose to oppose two posters with the same structure: on the right part a moment of our reality and on the left part some others, less peaceful and easy. If we observe the photos on the right, we can see that individually they got an artistic dimension which could also be used for some advertising campaign like camping furniture or running shoes. They present some life instants in which we can easily picture ourselves. On the left, those photos are more distant from us, like a photo coverage. The message of each one is transformed when they are opposed, creating a new one strengthened by this disposition.

There is no text in those prints except the website. It allows the internal organization and the photos to create an effect and the audience to be touched by it. The name of the website – which is also the name of the campaign – simply undertake the photos and the meaning of the campaign.

For us, it is obvious that we are privileged but the aim of the campaign isn’t really clear: make us react to share our luck or arouse our curiosity? To found out more about it and the interactive part of this campaign visit the website which is awesome and really well realized!

Source: mymodernmet.com

What if girls could be an answer to poverty and development?


2010
11.18

Girl effect is a campaign to end poverty and help developing world through the unique potential of girls. In fact the girl effect is not only one big campaign but hundreds of thousands campaigns spread by people like us. I think that this video is a good example of the general campaign and message.

Lately, we have seen a lot of video clips based on kinetic typography but this one has an interesting use of colours to support the message. They succeeded to reinforce it by using orange colour when they explain the girl effect principles, bringing life and light in the presentation. This colour is opposed to the black and white combination used to implement the context and increase the dramatic effect. I find this use of colours very pedagogical. It brings a dynamic – increased by the music – and strengthens the message.

The advantage of this type of communication is that they can reach a large scale of people and age through a logical demonstration. And for me, the aim is to convince people through this argumentation and not particularly to create an emotion. So this use of kinetic typography is really well adapted to their cause and well realized.

You can also watch more videos and have some information about the girl effect on their website: girleffect.org.

When your signature can stop torture!


2010
10.13

Here is one of the best idea in terms of communication I have seen recently! Petition is one of the less attractive communication tools, but Amnesty International succeeded to promote it with those great ads against torture. The idea was to make people see and understand the power of their signature. So even if it seems to be an insignificant act it matters. This campaign is simple, effective, concrete and an awesome idea.

Source: Osocio

How to reach men and women with Breast Cancer Campaigns?


2010
09.27

We recently had the opportunity to see several campaigns about breast cancer. I’d like to confront two of them to show how they succeeded to catch their audience.

The first one is based in Singapore targeting women for breast examination with 3 prints. The second one is a Polish campaign based on viral advertising for men. It trains them to examine their partners’ breast and encourage breast cancer screening.

Prints for women

The Breast Cancer Foundation of Singapore offered a new awareness campaign created by DDB Singapore to promote breast examination.

They chose humour through body painting to pass their message. Breasts are really well integrated in those paintings and become an entire part of it, like jean’s buttons or pimple. Drawing women like comics with some of their complexes and obsessions is really clever. It creates an opposition between appearance and what matters. The artistic direction is also really well done and adapted to the target: humour and self-derision with an artistic dimension. Women can picture themselves in those situations. It increases the chance that the message reach the audience, have an impact and encourage them to go to breast exam.

Viral advertising for men

This campaign, created by Change Integrated Poland, is original because it is for men who are not directly concerned by breast cancer. Quite a challenge! They chose to create a viral advertising campaign.

It was integrated in the front page of one of the most famous website in the adult part. They replaced one of the pictures with their own. The idea is that men will click on it and start following instructions show by the woman. In playing they will learn how to examine their partner’s breast and help prevent breast cancer. They only discover the aim of this game at the end of the slide-show.

In terms of communications, I think that it is a good strategy and seems to be a success:

  • Viral advertising is a good way to communicate about an event or a cause: around 175 000 person have seen this campaign and be trained in a week. Moreover, viral advertising has generally an important impact and success like Tippex or WWF with the exibition 1600 pandas.
  • The cost: It is less expensive to train men through this kind of on-line support than off-line breast check training courses. Nevertheless, I don’t think that we can compare them – in terms of quality – but it seems to be a good introduction. It can also reach more people and increase the chance to encourage them to be more concerned about it.
  • The audience: they targeted men for this campaign and it seems that they found a good way to reach them.  This campaign can be a subject of criticism because they sexualized cancer. It is true that the campaign aid is an adult website so in this way I have to agree. Showing breast to say that it is not shameful or lewd thing like in nursing or to prevent you from breast cancer is one thing and maybe in choosing this communication aid they went too far.

They succeeded to adapt with success a delicate subject to a public which is not directly concerned. So it was important to speak about this campaign. In addition they used a viral strategy which seems to be a raising practice in nonprofit.

The interesting point of those campaigns is that they spoke about the same subject in targeting two different audiences. They also chose two strategies: prints and viral advertising. We can notice that they both had some lightness in it – comic drawings and game – adapted to their target to reach them. They both tried to integrate people habits or life to pass the message and add it in their life.

Source: adsoftheworld.com, osocio.org

WaterAid: The Diarrhoea Song – Dig toilets, Not graves


2010
09.01

WaterAid offered a new campaign about a common disease in our countries: Diarrhoea. The NGO chose to speak about it because it causes a high rate of infant mortality in poorest countries.

Who is more appropriate to speak about infant mortality than children? This group of children from primary school is fun; singing a song about diarrhoea, making noises, like any children in our countries. However, when the child from a southern village ends the song, he is not having fun or laughing. He seems more serious and less carefree. This effect is reinforced by the number of children dying of it every day, which adds a tragic dimension.

The advantage of choosing kids to sing and speak about it is a good way to avoid pathos, even if the off screen voice is kind of tragic. Nevertheless, the organization didn’t fall into the common use of dying children to encourage people to make donations. So the interesting point is this use of childish lightness to pass a message. It also reminds us that a simple annoyance like diarrhoea can have more disastrous implications in poorest countries. Meanwhile, they make the solution quite “simple”: dig toilets and we can easily help through donations.

The most interesting aspect for me in this campaign is that humour and simplicity are a good way to speak about delicate subjects. A thing that sometimes we forgot ;) .

Médecins du Monde – 30 years old – New Communication Campaign


2010
06.09

June 6th 2010 was Médecins du Monde‘s birthday. 30 years ago MDM was published in the Official Journal, which makes a new association official in France.

June 7th was MDM’s new communications campaign launch, based on its anniversary. Their target is people between 25/35 years old, knowing the organization but not its aim or how to help. The message of this campaign is «Nous sommes tous Médecins du Monde » (We are all world’s doctors).They oriented it on their present and future actions, their actors and donors.

Concerning the offline part, they entrusted Saatchi & Saatchi to realize it:

*

Those prints reflect four of MDM’s fights: HIV/AIDS, violence against women, help to migrants and emergency interventions. There is an interesting game in the realization: when we look at it in the first place, we create short-cuts between photo and text. But when we take the time to read the paragraph in white, we can see that they are not victims but donors. It is a really good game based on our preconceptions.

About the online part, MDM decided to create a web documentary.
It is a realization composed of témoignages from five 30 years old people from five different continents. MDM tried to show an evolution from 30 years ago with French doctors to actual MDM’s people who are not necessarily doctors or French.


The other part is a contest in which people can create a documentary to explain what precariousness means to them. At the end, the winner will be diffused by MDM and Dailymotion.

This part of the communication campaign is a good example of how important témoignage is in MDM’s actions and values and how they try to combine it with new technologies. In addition, we can observe that there is a « new » trend in nonprofit communication which boosts donors’ self-esteem.

Tyrannybook by Amnesty International


2010
05.07

Tyrannybook, created by Amnesty International Portugal and Leo Burnett Iberia, is a new social network in which you can keep an eye on world leaders who violate Human Rights the most.

By creating a community around this issue,  the organization not only gains visibility but also keeps people conscious of what is going on, up dated by Amnesty and users. It is a good way to give people the opportunity to discuss current issues, share point of views, become allies, etc. They also created a video to explain the concept and how to use it.

As we know, social networks are new tools in nonprofit communications strategies and this is really a good example of how to reinvent one of them by creating a community to serve an organization and a cause.

Colorectal Cancer Association of Canada: Get your butt seen.


2010
04.09

Many of us have already seen the video from Colorectal Cancer Association of Canada, part of the campaign: Get your butt seen!

What is interesting in this awareness campaign is that they used a situation that people usually do for fun. In this short video they just said that some people photocopy their butt for fun and so don’t be ashamed of showing yours because it can save your life!

Here are the prints which I really like because they added diversity with men and women butts and black/white images involved that everyone is concerned. The artistic direction of this project was really good and the visual choice really adapted to the subject. Nice Campaign!

Source: adsoftheworld