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Meals On Wheels Association of America: Launching an Online Campaign
Jessica Harrington, Vice President

Meals On Wheels Association of America (MOWAA) was looking to draw attention to the issue of senior hunger in America. And, while MOWAA could have undertaken a traditional advertising campaign, a national promotion is expensive and doesn’t easily allow for people to take action. MOWAA needed an innovative way to tell the story of senior hunger in America and an outreach mechanism that would reach thousands of people cost-effectively and allow them to get involved.

S&W Strategy

To help illustrate the issue of senior hunger, MOWAA decided to focus on mothers—and how millions of them would be lonely, homebound and hungry on Mother’s Day. With this theme, we created the Meals for Moms campaign to raise awareness, send messages of hope and help provide meals for hungry, homebound mothers.

MOWAA and S&W created a branded microsite, mealsformoms.org, which became the heart of the entire senior hunger campaign. Central to the microsite was the ability to build your own Mother’s Day e-bouquet, which allowed users to choose from different flowers, ribbons and messages. The customized e-bouquets could then be sent to a mother, a friend or a homebound senior.

We advertised the microsite—and the customized e-cards—through online ads, paid search, Facebook advertising and online recruitment.

MOWAA aggressively promoted the campaign to its own constituents (through direct mail and e-mails) and its social networks, even asking Facebook fans to change their profile picture to the Meals for Moms logo.

Results

  • MOWAA increased its e-mail list by over 200%.
  • 70% of donors were new to the organization.
  • MOWAA’s Facebook network grew by 27%.
  • The Meals for Moms campaign was covered by at least one news outlet.
While the Meals for Moms campaign was successful in building awareness about the issue of senior hunger in America and raising the profile of Meals On Wheels Association of America, it also captured thousands of new constituents for the organization—something a traditional advertising campaign can’t do.

Schultz & Williams is a national consulting firm based in Philadelphia; providing management, fundraising and marketing consulting for nonprofit organizations, along with full-service direct marketing, database and creative/production services.