Nonprofit uses multiple platforms to help win two major grants
Contacts: 3,014Customer Since: March, 2010
Location: Springfield, Ill.
Website: http://www.thehopeinstitute.us
The Hope Institute for Children and Families in Springfield, Ill., is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping children with multiple disabilities, including Autism Spectrum Disorders, through educational, residential, and other health service programs. With such an intense mission to help children, raising funds through donations and other sources is of utmost importance to the organization.
In the spring of 2010, the Hope Institute was presented with two opportunities to secure grants for two of its subsidiary organizations -- $25,000 for the Autism Program of Illinois in May and $50,000 for Noll Dental Clinic in June -- via the Pepsi Refresh Challenge, which handed out money each month to worthy organizations and ideas. The catch: An idea had to get the most votes in order to win. To get the votes needed to put the organization over the top, the Hope Institute launched an email and Facebook campaign.
"Through the Pepsi Refresh Challenge, we actually discovered that email was by and large the most effective form of marketing," says Jarid Brown, manager of online interactions at the Hope Institute. "Our advocates took our emails asking for support and forwarded them along to entire email address books. Every time an email was sent, our ranking on the contest rose substantially. Better yet, we dramatically increased our email subscriber base without any increase in unsubscribes."
The Hope Institute collected an average of 7,000 online votes per day for the May campaign. Then, for the June campaign, Jarid and his colleagues revised the combined social media and email marketing strategy. For that vote drive, 90% of the effort was email-based and the social media push was decreased by 80%, so as to not overly hound supporters. With the revised strategy, the organization received 7,000 to 10,000 votes per day, even more than the May campaign.
Beyond the grants, the Hope Institute collected something just as important: An increased fan base and potential advocates for the organization, creating lasting relationships and visibility for future efforts.
"As a nonprofit, we are in the business of creating these relationships," Jarid says. "We used the contest not only to generate publicity, but also to begin to build these relationships, expanding our support base for everything from donations and volunteers to potential partnerships and future support for campaigns and legislative issues."
