Fundraising in the Digital EraThe American Cancer Society Case Study

Predictions for 2016As 2015 comes to a close, leading experts are making lists of predictions for digital trends in the new year. Brian Solis, leading digital anthropologist and author of [What’s The Future] Of Business?, instead issues “a clarion call for marketers to take a step back and learn more about the role marketing can play in shaping the customer experience in every moment of truth” (2015).

He is interested in marketing not as talking but as listening, “as a form of engagement and community building” that goes beyond the sale, and will distinguish the truly experiential brands of tomorrow (2015).

Nonprofit Marketing Nonprofits face a unique set of challenges compared to their public sector counterparts that make planning and integrating digital campaigns more difficult. According to a 2015 report from the Content Marketing Institute:● 56% struggle with financial roadblocks● 34% face a lack of executive buy-in● And only 23% have documented content strategies in place

The report also found areas of promise, most notably progress in video marketing among nonprofits. Nonprofits generated upwards of 670 million branded-video views in 2014, due in large part to viral campaigns like the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge (Crowl, 2015).

Digital StorytellingLuckily for nonprofit professionals, building community and storytelling go back to the basics of fundraising. In an interview with the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Wharton marketing professor Deborah Small explains “The more vivid the story - through narrative or through imagery - the more emotionally arousing. And emotions are what triggers the impetus to help” (Ni, 2008). Even further, her research has found that statistics can actually suppress giving by “causing people to think in a more calculative, albeit uncaring, manner.”

Social media allows nonprofits to share their stories more vividly, easily, and at a lower cost than ever before. Today’s popular video platforms include YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Vine, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, and Tumblr.

ACS: Social StrategyOne organization that has been doing this well for many years is the American Cancer Society (ACS). The ACS relies heavily on the use of video as its vivid storytelling medium of choice and video features prominently in its social media strategy. The ACS was an early adopter of social media, and has effectively harnessed its power to reach a huge audience of passionate supporters, increase donations, and gain more followers.

Sendible nicely summarized the ACS’ approach as “an opportunity for education, awareness and advocacy. They focus on listening to their patients and survivors and listen to their stories carefully to help meet their needs” (2015). As this implies, they recognize that social media is a two-way street, with both the ACS and users contributing to the conversation.

ACS: Social StrategyThe ACS uses social media as an extension of its overall marketing strategy to build on its 90th percentile brand recognition by showcasing the work it does and interacting with supporters to create a unique brand experience (Santicola, 2009). Early on it recognized the ability of social media to create a community of sympathisers, typically composed of those affected by the disease in some way.

“As we began to watch the phenomena of the social networks, what we realized is that’s really just still about community. It’s just a different kind of community. It’s building your select network of friends, acquaintances and family. Community building is really what we’ve done our entire existence at the ACS. We communicate with communities that support the American Cancer Society. We really feel like social media is just the next evolution of community building.”

- Terry Music, Chief Mission Delivery Officer (Santicola, 2009)

ACS: Social StrategyThis helps differentiate the ACS from the over 1,000 other nonprofits with cancer in their name and is part of a larger effort to expand its reach, which has allowed it to become “the first volunteer health charity to raise $1 billion in a single fiscal year through a median gift of $25” (Hrywna, 2013).

“In a sense, we have empowered our followers to help us tell our organizational story. This can be truly powerful and long-lasting.” - Karen Rose, then Social Media Strategist for their National Home Office in

Atlanta, GA (Lewis, 2011)

They encourage storytelling by highlighting stories of survivors, providing interactive content, and inviting users to create easily shareable content of their own.

ACS: Social Platforms

● 6 Facebook accounts (1M+ likes) - ACS, Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, Relay For Life, More Birthdays, Hope Lodge, Coaches vs. Cancer

● 8 Twitter handles (625k+ followers) - @ACSNews, @AmericanCancer, @RelayForLife, @Morebirthdays, @acsglobal, @CoachesvCancer, @OtisBrawley, @DrLen

● LinkedIn (70k+ followers)● YouTube (10k+ subscribers)● Pinterest (8.5k+ followers)

● Causes (380k+ supporters)● MySpace (800+ connections)● 5 Apple apps

The ACS maintains a vast branded social media presence, both from their National Home Office and 11 geographic divisions. The organization’s pressroom website includes links to:

ACS: Social PlatformsThe ACS can also be found on:● Google+ (10k+ followers)● Vine (10k+ followers)● Instagram (25k+ followers)● Tumblr ● Foursquare● Wikipedia

And hosts several blogs on its website:● Expert Voices Blog● Dr. Len’s Cancer Blog● The Road to More Birthdays Blog

ACS: Social VideoWhile not solely confined to YouTube, this page is a repository of hundreds of videos with 12.7M views and counting. Videos from this account are shared across the ACS’ many social platforms. Topics include:● ACS promotion ● ACS events● Cancer prevention ● Cancer treatment● Cancer facts● Cancer research● Survivor stories

ACS: More Birthdays Campaign Although the organization is just over 100 years old, it didn’t launch its first branding campaign until 2009, working with The Martin Agency on the movement for More Birthdays. The campaign began with this commercial, depicting diverse people of all ages celebrating a birthday

with loved ones. It represents a clear marketing shift for the organization, characterized by messaging that is:● Action-oriented● Emotional ● Positive● Simple ● Universal

ACS: More Birthdays Campaign Social media played an integral role in the campaign, which had dedicated Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest space and applications that invited users to register their birthdays, send e-cards, and share the message with their networks. The organization commissioned celebrity artists and musicians, including Rhianna, Keith Urban, Lady Antebellum, Justin Bieber, and Usher, to create exclusive content to help users celebrate birthdays (ACS, 2010). The ACS also hosted a user-generated artwork contest to increase participation.

By adding value and meeting supporters in their platform of choice, the campaign went viral. Karen Rose credits its success to the fact that it “opened it up for people to allow them to honor a loved one or tell their story” (Lewis, 2011).

ACS: Advantage Humans Campaign The ACS is building on this success with its current campaign, Advantage Humans. This award-winning campaign distills the complexity of cancer even further, highlighting single, specific emotions people feel in response to the disease andfeaturing a real survivor’s story with each:

● Hope vs breast cancer, Lauren● Courage vs lymphoma, Isabel● Defiance vs ewings sarcoma, Brandon● Devotion vs throat cancer, Sandro

This video is one in a series. All feature a twist ending to a scene familiar to viewers, in this case a boy picking his date up for prom.

ACS: Advantage Humans Campaign Consistent with best practices, the campaign is highly integrated across the ACS’

digital platforms, with banners on its website (top left), Instagram (bottom left), Twitter (bottom middle), and Facebook accounts (bottom right). LinkedIn also features a story on Advantage Humans. Striking photography and raw emotion are hallmarks of the campaign. A “donate” call to action is included with all messaging.

Recommendations Social video is growing at a rapid pace. YouTube is the second largest search engine on the web and online video users are expected to double to 1.5 billion in 2016 (Boring, 2015). The ACS uses video to tell its story masterfully. While this organization has an advertising budget in the millions, there are takeaways from their success for any nonprofit:● Determine the video platform best geared toward your audience. Hootsuite

outlines the most popular options, including audience, best practices, and examples (LePage, 2014).

● Focus on creating content that is interactive, adds value, and encourages action. Adotas offers useful tips for the most popular platforms (Taylor, 2012).

● Be responsive to users, including by resolving complaints in the social sphere, and don’t spread yourself too thin across platforms.

Recommendations ● Integrate social media into your organization’s

overall community building strategy.● Simplify your brand to its most essential human

elements and appeal to users’ emotions to tell your story.

● Emphasize changes rather than states. Deborah Small’s research has shown that “sympathy is particularly responsive to changes in someone’s condition” (Ni, 2008). People have a more emotional reaction to hearing someone has been diagnosed with an illness rather than being born with a defect, and similarly give more to natural disasters than to chronic conditions.

SummaryWhile the American Cancer Society is generally a shining example to follow, for their part they could do a better job engaging with users on their Google+, Pinterest, and Vine accounts, which each boast close to 10k followers, yet aren’t as well integrated with the organization’s overall messaging. Its last Google+ post was in September 2014, there is no Pinterest board for Advantage Humans, and not a single post to Vine.

As this case illustrates, nonprofits that embrace social media, especially video, can tap into a community of passionate supporters who provide earned media exposure to advance their mission, paying dividends in terms of both donations and supporters.

ReferencesAmerican Cancer Society. (2015). Pressroom. American Cancer Society. Retrieved from http://pressroom.cancer.org.

American Cancer Society. (2010). Press Releases. American Cancer Society. Retrieved from http://pressroom.cancer.org/index.php?s=43&item=281.

Boring, J. (2015). The Stats Behind The Growth of Video Marketing and YouTube. SocialSpice Media. Retrieved from http://www.socialspicemedia.com/stats-behind-growth-video-marketing-youtube/.

Crowl, J. (2015). Top 2015 Nonprofit Content Marketing Challenges Are Budget and Buy-In. Content Standard. Retrieved from http://www.skyword.com/contentstandard/news/top-2015-nonprofit-content-marketing-challenges-are-budget-and-buy-in/.

Hrywna, M. (2013). ACS: Next 100 Years. The NonProfit Times. Retrieved from http://www.thenonprofittimes.com/news-articles/acs-next-100-years/.

ReferencesLePage, E. (2014). Which Social Video Platform Is Right For Your Business? Hootsuite. Retrieved from http://blog.hootsuite.com/social-video-platforms/.

Lewis, M. (2011). Social Marketing: The Spokes to the American Cancer Society Hub, Interview with Karen Rose. Socialnomics. Retrieved from http://www.socialnomics.net/2011/12/27/social-marketing-the-spokes-to-the-american-cancer-society-hub-interview-with-karen-rose/.

Ni, P. (2008). Why Vivid Storytelling Inspires Giving. Stanford Social Innovation Review. Retrieved from http://ssir.org/articles/entry/why_vivid_storytelling_inspires_giving.

Parpis, E. (2009). ACS Goal: More Birthdays. AdWeek. Retrieved from http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/acs-goal-more-birthdays-99061.

Pindoriya, V. (2015). 5 Brands with a Simply Striking Social Media Presence. Sendible. Retrieved from http://sendible.com/insights/5-brands-with-a-simply-striking-social-media-presence/.

ReferencesSanticola, A. (2009). Cover Story: New Media...Same Strategy. NonProfit PRO. Retrieved from http://www.nonprofitpro.com/article/a-pioneer-social-networking-american-cancer-society-realizes-web-20-tools-just-high-tech-ways-continue-its-been-doing-hundred-years-building-interacting-community-constituents-united-against-cancer-40/.

Solis, B. (2015). 69 Experts Share 2016 Marketing Predictions. @Brian Solis. Retrieved from http://www.briansolis.com/2015/12/69-experts-share-2016-marketing-predictions/.

Solis, B. (2013). [What’s the Future] of Business?: Changing the Way Businesses Create Experiences. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Taylor, C. (2012). What A Brand Needs, Wants & Covets On Social (And How To Get It). Adotas. Retrieved from http://www.adotas.com/2012/09/what-a-brand-needs-wants-covets-on-social-and-how-to-get-it/.