BACKGROUND

By the year 2016, I had lived in three different countries and worked for four different companies. I knew I was looking for something more, there was a missing link that was not letting me reach where I wanted to. I had never imagined I would end up working with an NGO.

When I got through SPJIMR PGPM program, I breathed a sigh of relief as I knew that I can now fill that empty void that was eating me from inside. Like any MBA program, this was rigorous; quizzes, presentations, assignments, end semester examinations, were a never-ending ritual. I did not complain as I was waiting to be in a place like this.

In June, we completed our general management modules and it was time for DOCC – an opportunity for a pampered child-like me to get some grounding in life, to witness the life in the slums, that I had just heard of but never seen.

THE NGO

There are three things I enjoy a lot – marketing, photography, and travel. I believe that my stars were perfectly aligned as I got to work on Marketing and Branding for Saath Charitable Trust, an NGO based out of Ahmedabad. It was a two weeks project where we were responsible for revamping their marketing and branding strategy for fundraising.

SAATH is an NGO registered as a public charitable trust in Gujarat, India established in 1989. SAATH closely works with the vulnerable communities and empowers the socially marginalised by providing them livelihood linkages; imparting skills that lead to employment, health and educational facilities and housing and shelter.

In the last 28 years, SAATH has reached out to several slum residents, migrants, minorities, children, women, youth and vulnerable people in various cities like Gujarat, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Bihar, UP and Maharashtra and has touched the lives of more than five lakh individuals

Their Impact Sectors: Livelihoods, Health & Education, Services for the Urban Poor, Housing & Shelter and Micro-finance.

And We Began…

On our first day at the NGO, we were briefed about the problem they were facing with the Marketing and Branding. Their major source of funding came from the CSR funds of companies in Ahmedabad. They were not able to reach out to individual donors and wanted to address the issue.

Having had a little exposure in the digital marketing domain, we wanted to understand their current Social Media strategy; how they were reaching to philanthropists, donors, etc. and what content they were publishing. We realised that they had merely two posts on Instagram and non-influential content on Facebook. They hadn’t updated their Linkedin profile in over a year.

Before moving ahead with changes on their social Media platforms, we decided to first explain to them the importance of social media, especially in audience engagement. We gave them the following pointers:

• Social Media – organic and paid
• Instagram hashtags
• Content; photos and text
• Frequency and duration of posts in a day
• Audience engagement

The core team at the NGO were excited and wanted us to implement these ideas, in order to help them grow online and offline. We created a roadmap for both online and offline marketing. The online roadmap was: –

• FIELD VISIT

  • Collect content for various programs
  • Collect pictures and videos for promotional activities
  • Show the ground reality more than the success story

• PHOTOS & VIDEOS

  • Editing
  • Writing content
  • Relevant hashtags

• ONLINE CAMPAIGNS

  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • MailChimp
  • We could not work on twitter (lack of knowledge + the NGO could not have a dedicated social media team)

We spoke to them about a budget for SEO and SEM – a method to reach the relevant audience faster and get a higher rate of conversion. They liked the idea but did not have the budget for the same. So, we decided to bring them conversions organically. We spent two days in the field, visiting several of their centres, meeting and interviewing the people they had impacted, capturing some heartbreaking stories. By the end, we had enough content to start running some impactful content.

Our first goal was to increase followers on Instagram. After researching on the relevant hashtags, we posted our first story and instantly saw an increase in followers. Simultaneously we were posting the same story on Facebook. We explained the quintessential need for everyone in the organisation to be on these platforms and for them to start sharing the posts. We leveraged our own contacts to share and like the posts and follow their page.

STRATEGY

We made sure that we posted two photos on Instagram, and published the same on Facebook. We also explained the importance of “Repost” on Instagram and made employees download the mobile application. The Director of SAATH was onboard with our need and sent out a company wide email to request employees to support our initiative.

Within a few days, the number of followers had grown exponentially and we realised it was time for a video post. We ran our first video campaign of girl who had benefited from the program. We got good feedback, followers sentiments were happy. They encouraged us to continue the good work.

While the Instagram post continued, we started working on our second video post. This one was of two girls who had to stop school as their parents could not afford to pay their fees. Their parents had reached out to Saath for help and through their contacts, they found people who sponsored their education. We ran a campaign on their story and a need for more such people to sponsor a child’s education.

The very next day we had our first individual donor, who after seeing the video wanted to contribute a fixed amount every month for the next two years. We used the photographs from the field visit to create their first brochure, to revamp their corporate decks, their cover photos on Facebook and LinkedIn. Global Giving was the next platform which we decided to work on. From rewriting the story to sending Global Giving new content and pictures, we were involved in the entire rework.

MailChimp is an email marketing platform that we worked on. We started with Database creation,  followed by campaign designing. In the two weeks that we worked with the NGO, we improved their presence on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Global Giving and MailChimp. Recently the NGO won the “City Ka Sitara” award from Radio City.

VALUE ADDITION

• Increased online presence on social media:
  • 275% increase in followers on Instagram
  • Audience Reach of over 3,400 per post organically over a period of 10 days from an average of 43
  • Increased organic audience engagement from 1% to 6% per post engagement over a period of 2 weeks

• Consolidated the list of targeted corporates and key philanthropists on MailChimp
  • Created customised campaigns to reach a diversified audience – increased open rate by 50%

• Captured visual content via photographs and videos
  • Shot & edited over 500 photographs to be used by SAATH for campaigns
  • Created & launched their very first video campaign: following day got a donation for 2 years of INR 3000 per month

• Revamped their Crowd Funding Platform
  • Created impactful/aesthetically appealing presentations to appeal to philanthropists on crowdfunding platforms such as Global Giving & Give India
• Designed and created their first brochure – A visually appealing document capturing all the programs offered by SAATH
• Friends of SAATH: a new initiative devised to reach a wider audience of donors

Some of Our Work:

Video Links:-

Visit Facebook Link: https://www.facebook.com/saathahmedabad/videos/10154720046506794/

Visit Facebook Link: https://www.facebook.com/saathahmedabad/videos/10154714503026794/

To look at pictures please visit: https://www.instagram.com/saathcharitabletrust/

Final Phase: Handover

It was our last day and we had to handover all our implementation to the core team at SAATH, they were eager to take over as we had laid the foundation for them. They have taken to social media and have since improved their content and reach.

Solution & Recommendations

• Online Visibility
• Create more content online for purpose of audience reach and engagement
• Build a story that talks about Saath as a brand, and its ground reality
• Improve the brand image by creating a uniform and visually engaging presentations on crowdfunding platforms
• Offline Engagement
• Get testimonials from existing corporate donors for brochure and presentation
• Create funding strategies for each of the programs offered by SAATH
• Improve the brand image by creating a uniform and visually engaging presentations on crowdfunding platforms
• Recommendations
• Hire/Train employees on Social Media strategies
• Follow a uniform tone for communication across all channels to capture and retain audience
• Use visual content for the purpose of audience outreach

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