Crafting a Campaign: 100,000 Miracles

By Doug Nelson
November 1, 2006

A Big Picture

At Silas Partners, we work with campaigns on a number of levels, lending our expertise on items like e-mail strategy and design, taking the “missing piece” of an idea and figuring out how to best use it with the existing work. During my first six months with the company, though, I was itching for something more: The opportunity to really show off what Silas can do when there’s no pre-existing campaign; when we start from zero. Fittingly enough, my first chance to work on such a project was given the daunting title of 100,000 Miracles - which is a lot of miracles to get to from zero.

A Little Background

Christian Blind Mission International is one of my favorite clients. They are an organization dedicated to improving the lives of the blind and disabled worldwide through efficient, strategic, and often inexpensive means. 100,000 Miracles is a great example of their work - a drive to fund cataract operations for the blind in small villages around the world, each for as little as $35. The difference you can make with such an operation is incredible. Because of this, Archbishop Desmond Tutu helped launch a campaign with the goal of providing one hundred thousand operations within a hundred days. Hence, 100,000 miracles.

A Tight Timeframe

Given the scale of the task and the ticking clock, we knew a site needed to go up quickly. With only four weeks on our hands, we put together a plan. Create a site that made donating easy, encouraged repeat visits with updated content, and was capable of promoting itself virally.

The last item was critical for a compressed timeline like this one. On top of public events and email appeals, we needed to build as many avenues into the site as possible. Using free tools, quick design, and simple interactive elements, we ended up developing a site that gave users more ways to interact than just donation. In the process, it acquired names and promoted the campaign virally.

A Free Lunch

One of the most overlooked avenues of marketing has always been word-of-mouth. It’s easy to see why. Word-of-mouth promotion is slow, unpredictable, and generally out of the hands of organizations. While you can’t tell your donors to promote your cause, you can certainly make it easier for them with a few simple ideas.

For 100,000 Miracles, we wanted to give donors a little website “thank you,” in the form of four site badges that can be quickly added to any website or blog. It’s a quick way to further connect donors to the cause, and to get them to do your advertising for you.

CBMI’s clever and impactful campaign ad was another post-donation action users could take, so it needed to be as easy as possible to email and maintain. The solution? YouTube! Promoting the video on this popular service allowed a made-for-TV spot to be watched nearly 500 times, without costing CBMI a penny in bandwidth charges.

Henry Wanyoike, the world-famous blind runner, had been promoting the 100,000 Miracles cause during his lead-up to the NYC Marathon. On the website, users were able to send him notes of encouragement and congratulations. Over 5,000 people signed up to cheer for Henry in the race. It was a great way to build relationships and acquire names.

A Targeted Approach

Of course, you can’t forget the more traditional methods of advertising. Silas Partners built blog and website ads for both CBMI and Henry, for placement on sites like Care2.org, Google, and Beliefnet.com. Having a flexible collection of ads allows a client to choose messaging and visuals on a site-by-site basis, maximizing the visibility and resonance with the target demographics.

A Relationship to Build

When you only have 100 days, you need to keep donors and constituents up-to-date. 100,000 Miracles had a number of avenues for news, both on the site and through email.

Like with web ads, Silas Partners built a number of email templates for the client to use, giving them a flexible way to quickly respond to new events (such as Henry’s results from the marathon - the first blind runner across the finish line in the 2006 NYC Marathon, 134th runner in the race!) instead of depending on pre-made emails.

A Few Weeks Left

As the campaign kicks into high gear, there will be more ads, more news, and more challenges to keep us thinking. Personally, I can’t wait to get 100,000 Miracles to the finish line, so we can look back at everything we’ve learned and made possible through this partnership with CBMI. While every client has unique needs and a unique approach, I feel 100,000 Miracles has a few ideas that can help other nonprofits drive down costs and increase word-of-mouth.

If you would like to find out more about how to implement these strategies and ideas in your organization, please take a moment to let us know a little about your needs.