great heart give 2016

The Great HEART Give is a competition organized by Heart Technologies for registered 501(c)3 organizations to have the chance to win a $10,000 technology grant. Each year, not-for-profit organizations are nominated. After careful considerations, finalists are announced. The communities then vote for which organization wins the $10,000 technology grant. This serves as a useful tool in increasing awareness and support for all finalists. This is the seventh year Heart Technologies has sponsored this competition, and it was our most successful year yet.

To begin, we purchased a list of all of the nonprofit organizations in Illinois, then narrowed that list down by location and 501(c)3 status. We then snail-mailed these organizations a postcard that spread awareness for this competition and encouraged entry. This year, we received nominations from 500% more organizations that 2015. 

Once the finalists were announced, the community was able to vote in three different ways: participating in weekly Facebook contests, voting online at our company blog site, or in person at our company booth in local chamber expos. We were so thrilled with the huge number of support from the community throughout the four weeks of competition. Our Facebook followers tripled, our expo visits nearly doubled from the first event to the last, and we received so many votes, our website was shut down temporarily because of heavy traffic.

For Great HEART Give 2016, I designed the postcards promoting this year's competition. I then created a landing page that held a form for the community to nominate their favorite nonprofit organizations for. This landing page also had different variants and would change depending on what phase of the competition we were in (for example, once nominations were closed, the webpage reflected that nominations had ended and the finalists would be announced). A Google calendar was also created for community members and finalists alike to keep in the loop. All they had to do was hit "Subscribe," and their smartphones, tablets, and computers would be updated immediately with contest dates and links. 

The finalists received a marketing packet I created, which included tips on how to gain support, images to use for social media as well as suggested posting verbiage and a letter template to email or snail-mail to current supporters. All of this was custom created for this event using original images and purchased vector patterns. In addition, videos were created to help promote the competition, hear from past winners, explain contest rules and tips, and share finalists and our winner.

what i learned
There is no way you can over communicate. It is incredibly important to know how to effectively use all of your outlets for communication, such as emails, social media, videos, press releases, and more, but it is equally important to keep your messaging clear, concise, and consistent. People will always be confused, so be sure to reiterate things often and be available to answer questions as necessary.