- Case Study -
LOCAL HEALTH FOUNDATION
A local health foundation that provides grants to community nonprofits needed help communicating the impact of its work to ensure it didn’t lose its funding.
THE CHALLENGE
A local health foundation that provides grants to address critical health issues in its community, including suicide prevention, trauma healing and equitable access to food, healthcare and housing, was in crisis mode. Since 2016, the team had invested millions into the community.
Despite the foundation’s meaningful work, most community members and elected officials were unaware of its impact and its funding was at risk of being diverted to other city initiatives.
The foundation needed a partner to help align on messaging and empower employee, grantee and board member advocates to share it. Enter: Next PR.
HOW WE GOT THERE
Messaging
Next PR identified three main audience personas the foundation needed to educate. The team got to work researching what these audiences care about, what they’re likely to question, which messages and stories of impact resonate most with them and the best calls to action for each. The Next PR team then created a FAQ document of tough questions the board might receive about the foundation.
Finally, the team knew that success metrics without context mean nothing: Saying the foundation has awarded 600 grants is hard to grasp. Is that good? Compared to what? This led to messaging themes like, “The foundation is the second largest local source of philanthropic support in the community.”
Brand Advocacy Training
With messaging determined, Next PR conducted a training to get all staff and board members aligned. As part of the training, Next PR provided feedback on the group’s elevator pitches and role-played tough questions elected officials or civic leaders might ask. Next PR empowered the group with creative ways to advocate to avoid losing funding, from letter writing to speaking on community podcasts about the work.
To amplify the impact of the foundation’s grants, Next PR developed a toolkit with social media and press release templates for funded partner organizations. In addition, the team created a LinkedIn best practices resource to encourage employees and stakeholders to be ambassadors for the foundation from their personal accounts.
Social Media
Next PR noticed the foundation’s outdated LinkedIn page could be harming its credibility, so the team got to work adding images, updating the mission statement and crafting posts about recent work so followers could stay in the know.
As with many foundations, its staff and bandwidth are lean. The Next PR team created another LinkedIn best practices guide to ensure the foundation could easily manage its LinkedIn page after the project ended.
THE RESULTS
Today, the foundation’s funding is intact. Since relaunching its updated LinkedIn page, following has grown 2,300% and stories of impact are regularly being promoted by both the foundation and its employees.
The LinkedIn page remains active and updated with regular posts and job openings. The foundation also communicated the positive response it received from its board members, who feel better prepared to answer tough questions from elected officials.