Industry: Corporate Foundation
Key Channels: Article Series, Contest, Email, Facebook, Twitter
The Allstate Foundation and MDR Encourage Educators to Empower Their Students to Give Back Through Service
ABOUT THE ALLSTATE FOUNDATION
The Allstate Foundation works to create more prosperous communities where people are empowered to fulfill their hopes and dreams by inspiring the next generation of leaders, breaking the cycle of domestic violence, closing the nonprofit leadership gap and honoring Allstate volunteers. More information is available at AllstateFoundation.org.
CHALLENGE
The Allstate Foundation helps provide youth with the guidance and resources they need to master critical social and emotional learning competencies and, ultimately, realize their full potential and achieve success in life. One of the initiative’s nonprofit partners is the WE Charity, a youth-serving charity that empowers change with resources that create sustainable impact. The Allstate Foundation teamed up with WE to create WE Volunteer Now, which encourages youth to plan and lead volunteer actions in their communities.
The Allstate Foundation wanted to introduce its support of WE to the education community and inform teachers of the benefits of signing up for WE Volunteer Now. In addition, The Allstate Foundation aimed to increase exposure and recognition of The Allstate Foundation and WE’s partnership benefitting schools and students, resulting in growing educator sign-ups for WE.
SOLUTION
To achieve its goals, The Allstate Foundation partnered with MDR to create a cause-related marketing program to reach K-12 educators, assistant principals, principals, school community service coordinators, and social service project leaders.
Together, they created a series of sponsored articles to be featured on WeAreTeachers, the #1 media brand for educators. The WeAreTeachers community is always growing, with more than 1.7 million followers on Facebook and 200 million social impressions a month.
Each article has helped teachers encourage their students to explore volunteer opportunities, tying them back to learning outcomes. For example, the article “12 Amazing Volunteer Ideas to Inspire Kids and Teens,” describes age appropriate volunteer activities for elementary through high school students, ranging from writing letters to deployed soldiers for elementary students to providing relief to a community after a natural disaster for high school students. The activities also tie back to learning outcomes by teaching important social emotional learning skills.
The article campaign on WeAreTeachers was designed to reach educators with content they want and need via a channel they already visit—the growing online educator community. Recognizing that to engage the educator audience it is important to reach them through continued touches, the articles were promoted via email to MDR’s database of hundreds of thousands of educators and through the monthly WeAreTeachers e-newsletters. In addition, the content was shared via WeAreTeachers social media channels on Facebook and Twitter.
All articles include links to the WE website. Teachers are encouraged to sign up for WE Volunteer Now via a contest hosted on WeAreTeachers.com for a chance to win a $250 grant towards their service project.
Other articles in the series include:
WE Volunteer Now
When teachers sign up for WE Volunteer Now they instantly receive a downloadable guide to help them:
- Start a volunteer campaign at their school
- Access grade-specific lessons
- Spark volunteering ideas
- Get information on important local and global issues designed especially for students
- Use WE Volunteer Now curriculum
- Keep on track with teacher checklists
In addition, 600 schools can apply to receive a $250 grant to use toward their service projects, made possible by The Allstate Foundation.
RESULTS
To date, the WE Volunteer Now content on WeAreTeachers has garnered nearly 6 million impressions, reaching 2.5 million educators with information about the program. The post promoting WE Volunteer Now on the WeAreTeachers Facebook page was among the top sponsored posts on the channel in 2018, reaching over 140,000 teachers. More than 1,840 teachers have signed up for WE Volunteer Now via WeAreTeachers, which accounts for over 40% of the total number of students and educators who have signed up for the program. The number of sign ups increases every day.
WE ARE HERE TO HELP
MDR is a full-service school and community engagement partner. A division of Dun & Bradstreet, MDR is a different kind of integrated marketing services agency that combines rich data with unique digital, creative, and branding capabilities.
We’ve been connecting brands through data and marketing services to educators, youth, and parents for 50 years. Reach targeted audiences through our database and digital communities WeAreTeachers and School Leaders Now.
Connect With Us
MDR’s team includes top email marketing experts, social wizards, the brightest of data geeks, award-winning writers, and many former teachers. If you’re ready to get started building engagement with educators, schools, and families, contact us!
