Innovative Marketing Strategies to Increase Participation in Summer Meals 2016 No Kid Hungry National Summer Meals Summit Tuesday, December 6 (10:45 AM 12:15 PM) Studio D
Welcome to Our Speakers: Sara Gold, Director, Healthy Kids, United Way for Southeastern Michigan Lauren McGowan, Director, Financial Stability, United Way of King County Kristin Caulley, Program Analyst, External & Government Affairs, USDA
Community Canvassing in Metro Detroit
Why Canvas? Communication is Key to Summer Meals Increase Awareness in Detroit Launch a New Program in 2012 Canvassing is a Win Win Activity Person to Person Communication for Community Community Engagement and Interaction and Volunteerism for United Way
Community Canvassing Efforts 2012-2016 2012: First Year of Canvassing for Summer Meals. Summer VISTAs and United Way Staff. Target Communities Aligned with United Way Community Investments and legacy sites. 2013: New idea: Bring Volunteers into Canvassing. Continue to rely on Summer Vistas. Used the VAN! Offer Mini Grants to Community Organizations to do their own Canvasing. Meet Up and Eat Up Launches as the Brand. Collected Data about whether or not people knew about the program already. 2014: Summer VISTAs start canvassing businesses as well as neighborhoods. Large Volunteer canvassing push, canvassing to drive families to MUEU block parties. 2015: Continued push to canvass to support MUEU block parties and use canvassing as a volunteer platform. Picture stolen from ACLU but this is what canvassing looks like.
Community Canvassing Efforts 2012-2016 2016: WE PAID FOR PROFESSIONAL CANVASSERS! It s expensive, but a game changer! We collected Data effectively! We harnessed our own analysis capability and attempted sensible targeting! Continued summer VISTA canvassing, limited Volunteer canvassing to Labor Union partnerships Scope of Canvassing 2016 Paid Canvassers reached: 11,703 individuals Summer VISTA and Labor Union Canvassers reached: 4,500 individuals
What did we learn?
What did we learn? Over 50% of individuals claimed no prior knowledge of Meet Up and Eat Up.
What did we learn? Over 80% of individuals indicated they would take their children to a Meet Up and Eat Up site.
Takeaways Canvassing helps you learn about your community. Canvassing is one layer of many that are needed to conduct outreach. Canvassing can be scaled up or down. Canvassing is personal. Canvassing is fun! Canvassing is not fun for everyone!
#UWKC
No Kid Hungry Summer Meals Summit Innovative Marketing United Way of King County Seattle, WA
King County Summer Meals 100,000 FRL eligible kids in region Only 1 in 7 kids taking part in summer meals Strong partnerships with schools, community based organizations, AmeriCorps VISTA, and libraries. But more needed to reach goal. Goal = 1 million meals in summer 2017
2013-2015 Materials - Colorful and Cute - Multilingual - Supported growth 43% - Lacks cool factor - Not generating significant earned media
2016-2018 Marketing Campaign Identified Marketing Firm Square Tomato to help redesign marketing and outreach campaign and better leverage radio and social media campaign Assets $70,000 100 AmeriCorps VISTA members to distribute materials Weekly Field Days
Lauren McGowan LMcGowan@uwkc.org @LaurenMcGowan
#UWKC
WORKING WITH RETAILERS Kristin Caulley U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service
THE IMPORTANCE OF WORKING WITH RETAILERS Non-traditional partners Large reach throughout the country Unique audiences
GIANT GROCERS 30-second PSA June 6-August 18 484 stores (MA, NY, NJ, VA, DC, WV, DE, PA, RI, and MD)
Capacity builder http://www.fns.usda.gov /capacitybuilder
PSA "As schools close for the summer, the meals that many children rely on also come to an end. As a result, millions of children spend their vacation not knowing where their next meal will coke from. Fortunately, the USDA Summer Food Service Program is here to help, with free, nutritious meals for children 18 years and younger. To fine free nutritious meals near you, text FOOD or COMIDA to 877-877. Once again: text FOOD or COMIDA to 877-877. You may also call 1-866-3hungry, once again: 1-866-3hungry"
CHALLENGES Measuring outcomes How many people listened to the ad? How many children visited feeding sites because of the ad played?
ROOM FOR EXPANSION
WORKING TOGETHER MOVING FORWARD What's already being implemented? Current relations Sharing resources
Questions? Kristin.Caulley@fns.usda.gov
Thank You! No Kid Hungry Center for Best Practices bestpractices@strength.org