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Influencer outreach: India gives to Give India

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(image source: Seruds)

As your humble servant and intrepid case study discoverer, I invite you to join me on my ongoing trip around the world as I move from Ireland to India, two countries very close to my heart. What do they have in common? Easy. Generous people with warm hearts living in two fascinatingly complex and rapidly evolving societies.

Enter “Give India”. This online donation platform harnesses the power of the Internet to facilitate grassroots support for non-profits in the country. Visitors to the site can choose to support a variety of initiatives like:

A one day Human Rights Awareness Workshop for 50 poor women

Sponsor the honorarium of a paralegal counselor for a year to fight against domestic violence

1 month nutrition and health care for a child living with HIV

Contribute to a fund to build a shelter for 50 neglected aged

Construct a Rain Water Harvesting Unit or Recharge Pit for a drought prone village.

Having worked with and having sat on the board of more than one non-profit, I can certainly attest to the constant scramble for funding. Hopefully, no stone goes unturned, which is likely why Give India chose to participate in the challenge set forth by the Chase Foundation. The task? Leverage your network in a bid to gain votes supporting your race towards a 1 million dollar prize.

Today’s featured case study could certainly been about the Chase Foundation’s visibility program. The $1M campaign was unfortunately not without controversy…

But back to Give India:

Objectives:

1. Get 40 000 votes
2. Increase traffic to Give India on Facebook and Twitter
3. Win $1M from the Chase Foundation
4. Educate 40 000 children

The Campaign: 1 vote = 1 child’s education for a year. A vote for India.

Results:

1. Key influencers, including Bollywood stars Purab Kohli, Shekhar Kapur and Farah Khan shared this campaign with their Twitter networks
2. Number of Twitter followers rose from 200 to over 350 in 8 days
3. Number of Facebook fans increased from 150 to over 500 in 8 days
4. Raised awareness for Give India among more than 4000 people

How did they do it?  By mobilizing influencers and their network through Twitter, Facebook and email. While they didn’t walk away with $1M from the Chase Foundation, the Give India case study is generously rich with key learnings, so check it out. It’s posted on India Social, India’s largest social media community. Rajesh Lalwani, founder of social media consulting firm Blogworks, who I had the great pleasure of meeting in Delhi, is one of the driving forces behind the India Social initiative.

Anand uthaayein!
Michelle