This blog is part of a three-part cause awareness day campaigns series. Check out parts two and three: How to create an impactful digital cause awareness day campaign and How a social impact creative agency can level-up your digital cause awareness day campaign. Do you have a project in mind? We’d love to hear about it.
Cause awareness days – like 16 Days of Activism, World AIDS Day, and International Women's Day – present an opportunity to join others around the world in raising awareness and advocating for a shared purpose. Adding your voice can help to make a difference on the issue, and to advance your nonprofit organization’s goals and mission.
There are many different ways to engage digitally – from making a statement and sharing a social media post with the cause awareness day hashtag, to joining an existing campaign, or leveraging the opportunity to start your own.
Are you ready to get involved? Here are some questions we recommend our clients consider before getting started:
First, do a little research to figure out: the day’s history and context, the theme (if applicable), and/or if there are any calls-to-action or hashtags already associated with it. Once you have this information, think through how you are best positioned to contribute to the conversation:
Throughout the planning phase, ask, “How will this digital campaign help us achieve our larger organizational goals?” Coming back to these bigger picture questions will help keep everyone aligned and motivated.
The campaign may provide you with an opportunity to engage existing, target audiences and broaden your reach (i.e. leveraging warm leads and creating new leads). Consider what channels are best for reaching your target audience members, what kinds of messages, tone, etc. will resonate with them, and how this campaign will create momentum that will allow you to engage with new audiences after the cause awareness day campaign is over.
While your communications team will likely take the lead, the work will be stronger in partnership. Think about staff members or organizational partners who have experience with your target audience or in relevant issue areas, and reach out to them to see if they are available to help. By building a dynamic team you can strengthen your messaging, strategy, and reach.
From research, strategy, and ideation to content creation, design, and implementation, a lot of time and effort can go into an effective cause awareness day campaign. Take a moment to understand the effort required to plan, develop, and execute each phase of the process, and make a realistic plan for implementation.
Ready for next steps in creating your cause campaign? Check out the next blog in our cause-campaign series for more on creating an impactful campaign.
