We needed to create a campaign that could raise at least 4 million Dirhams during Ramadan and act as a sustainable program that can continue for the other 11 months of the year as well.
Kids who have never been to school don't stop learning. So we turned to them to surprise people in the UAE by showing the potential of the kids they can help educate with a simple donation or Instagram post.
The Campaign
We needed to create a campaign that could raise at least 4 million Dirhams during Ramadan. With donor fatigue threatening donations and the tendency of social media charity campaigns to generate more Likes, Shares, Pins than donations, we needed to think different. So we turned to children living in poverty and asked them to share their skills through YouTube tutorials to create a skill exchange with people in the UAE. The kids were featured in ads to drive traffic and donations. In a series of activations, from an in-mall stand, a school to Instagram, people responded by donating and creating a crowdsourced alphabet book.
Creative Execution
We featured talented kids living in poverty doing DIY tutorials. And then released print ads featuring their work to ask people to donate. And with that, we created the first skill exchange between the developed and the underdeveloped world.
In a series of activations, children drew letters of the alphabet while people were encouraged to share pictures and text for each letter over Instagram to create a crowdsourced alphabet book. With all the social chatter and the striking visuals and messages generated by the campaign, the resulting news coverage drove the message to donate.
The campaign doubled last year’s contributions, raising millions of Dirhams to help educate kids living in poverty.
Online we reached over 300,000 views on YouTube, 130,000 impressions on Twitter and over 250,000 reach on Instagram.
Thousands of the crowdsourced alphabet books will be distributed in English, French and Arabic to children who need them the most.