The Million Dollar Email
Shannon Raybold
Raising $1 million with one e-mail message with stories from the field? Hard to believe, but Nothing But Nets, a grassroots campaign to save lives by preventing malaria, has raised more than $25 million by keeping it simple.
Keep it simple, find compelling ways to tell your story, give people a myriad of ways to get involved, and report back to them their success - these are key components to a successful online strategy.
The Nothing But Nets campaign grew from a Sports Illustrated column by Rick Reilly about malaria, challenging each of his readers to donate at least $10 for the purchase of anti-malaria bed nets, and the subsequent response from thousands of Americans across the country.
To date, the UN Foundation has raised more than $25 million, delivered more than 2.5 million life-saving bed nets, and created a "buzz" around malaria that has led to the involvement of faith groups, sports teams, local mayors, governors and everyday citizens in this battle to eliminate this preventable, infectious disease.
How did we do it?
We made it simple for people to understand the problem and how they can help.
The concept of the bed net is so easy, we were able to break it down to six words: Send a Net. Save a Life. This tag line is the heart of the campaign, both online and off.
This simplicity was reinforced on the website, NothingButNets.net, the true home of the Nothing But Nets campaign. It contains all the tools of the digital age - blogs, multi-media, Flash, etc. They pave the way for the actions we want people to take upon visiting the site - donate, involve their community through the Netraiser tool, and share their story with one another. No matter where they go on the website, visitors are prompted to take those three actions.
More than 1 million people have visited the site in the last two years, and the average donation is approximately $53. The site has hundreds of stories from around the country about how Americans are helping send bed nets to Africa. A common theme is that they didn't understand how easy or cheap it is to save a life - until finding Nothing But Nets.
Telling the Story
An important component of the website and the campaign is to tell the story of how malaria impacts the lives of women and children in Africa. The main section, or Flash feature, of the homepage, is used to illustrate the problem of malaria for new supporters through the life of a young refugee in Uganda. This rotating feature contains compelling photographs and short copy, explaining the current goal of the campaign.
Right now, the focus is the immediate need to send more than 275,000 bed nets to refugees in four African countries. In the "storycube," there is a compelling slide show of how malaria is affecting the refugees in each country, an explanation about the urgent need for nets, and an immediate link to the donate page. Again, it makes it simple to understand and easy for the audience to act.
Involving the Community
Another main feature of the website is its bustling blog, showcasing individuals and their involvement in the fight against malaria, along with touching stories from the field about those who receive the bed nets. Many organizations feel they don't have the internal resources to maintain or monitor a blog. The UN Foundation had that same concern, but the blog is worth the effort. It's not only a prominent place to acknowledge donors' work, but it also helps drive people to the website. Individuals who share their stories often share the link - and the cause -with others. This means the campaign is constantly being introduced to new audiences - for once it is posted on the homepage, the individual(s) who have written the post share the link with their friends and family.
The campaign also gives people other ways to engage their friends and family. Upon signing up for the campaign, they have the option of getting monthly text message updates. They can create their own fundraising teams online; share videos, toolkits, web banners, and links to buy Nothing But Nets gear; or play a bed net delivery game. They can also join us on the social networking sites Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Flickr - now even more important with the new Facebook design, which has increased access to supporters' feeds and enables us to reach all their friends through status updates.
Reporting Back - The $1 Million Email
Reporting back to our community is a key part of the overall communications strategy. In 2008, the executive director of Nothing But Nets sent a message to the campaign's email list about a net distribution in Mali. It focused on thanking supporters for their contribution, encouraging more ways for them to help protect children, and continuing to educate about malaria. This email, which featured stories and pictures from the ground, raised $1 million and is the UN Foundation's single most successful email, ever.
Nothing But Nets is just one of the many initiatives the United Nations Foundation has developed to tackle global problems, but the lessons learned from this effort have informed all of its online (and overall communications) strategies. Eliminating malaria by 2015 is a daunting goal, but at the UN Foundation, we believe we've found a platform to engage individuals and get them on board with helping to solve this global challenge.
Shannon Raybold is the Internet director at the United Nations Foundation.
The skill in communicating—getting message and mission out simply and understandably, personalizing the means of addressing it in doable dimensions, responding with results—is programmatically wonderful.
Thanks for sharing, and for doing the real work of making a difference in lives elsewhere.
— Michael Ceurvorst on 2009-05-19
I like this. t’s like telling the people what’s going on around the world
— wilfredo on 2009-10-01