THE CHALLENGE: Raising money in any year is difficult. Raising money in a year that’s suffering through a pandemic and a battered economy can be near impossible. Our charge was to increase the number of donors, the size of donation, and the overall amount raised by 5% over last year. With current financial hardships and no in-person fundraising events, how do we convince people that a children’s hospital in Tacoma needs their money?
THE WORK: Tugging at the heartstrings with footage of sick children describes most of the work in this category. We took a less-traveled route. We found Naomi, a happy, healthy six-year-old who spent 51 days in the hospital’s care, and we showed what a day in her life looks like today. To keep the production safe for everyone, we relied on Naomi’s parents to provide us with footage of their little girl (they shot hours and hours and hours of video – thank you again, Naomi’s Mom and Dad!). We cut it all together and showed Naomi playing, laughing, dancing, making faces, spilling cereal – all the things a kid does – and how she’s able to do all these things because of the time she spent at Mary Bridge Children’s.
THE RESULTS: We reached our target with broadcast TV and geo-targeted cable, partnered with KING5 to tell our story on Evening Magazine, ran newspaper ads, eBlasts, and homepage takeovers. We were on YouTube with pre-roll videos and on Facebook and Instagram with digital ads. In just five weeks we had 2,224 donations – an increase of 21.7% – and raised over $300,000 – an increase of 67.5%. And we showed how wonderful it is when a hospital can help kids get back to being kids.
