Brightlinn Marketing Amplifies the Work of the Virtual Doctors Project

 

A key challenge for small charities is finding new individual donors. Many organizations depend on social media as an avenue for engaging new supporters and converting supporters into donors.

We caught up with Jane Richardson and Pamela Cairns from Brightlinn Marketing to find out how they have been helping The Virtual Doctors Project overcome this challenge.

Case Study by Pamela Cairns and Jane Richardson:

The Background

The Virtual Doctors Project (VDP) uses the local mobile broadband network to link local health workers in remote rural communities in Zambia to the skills and experience of trained physicians around the world. There is a desperate lack of primary healthcare available to rural communities due to geographical isolation, the shortage of doctors and lack of resources.  The VDP makes a huge difference to the health of local people severely affected by HIV/Aids and other more treatable diseases such as malaria, helping to reduce unnecessary mortality and referrals to distant health centres.

The Issue

Having launched in April 2013, the charity was struggling to grow its individual donation database. Executive Director for Operations, Paul Mustardé, was keen to trial the power of social media to raise awareness of the project. He looked to Brightlinn Marketing for help in creating a strategy that would better communicate what the project was doing, enhance the fundraising efforts and help develop an ‘exciting/ modern but worthwhile cause’ brand for the project.  

 

The Project

Jane Richardson and Pamela Cairns from Brightlinn Marketing were excited by the challenge of creating a strategy from a blank sheet, by the enthusiasm and open mindedness of the VDP team and by the difference the project makes to its beneficiaries lives.

Having established measurable objectives, the project was divided into 5 areas:

1. An audit of the organisation’s existing online presence (website, Facebook and Causes)
2. Online research of the social media being used by other charities (both larger organisations and smaller, local ones)
3. Creating ideas for interesting and relevant content for publication on the VDP website and sharing via social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook
4. Developing a strategy based around three activities: creating and sharing content about the work of VDP and life in Zambia; improving the audience’s online experience; and the monitoring of results.
5. Producing an action plan out of the strategy and the research to suggest specific tasks that the VDP team could do to get their social media activity started.

 

The Outcome

VDP has adopted the action plan adding in a few of their own ideas. Although it is early yet to see the full effect of their activity, VDP report  “We are steadily building Facebook likes, Twitter followers, and mailing list subscribers which is the first stage of a progressive plan. You have definitely empowered us to take our social media presence to the next level.”

As this strategy is implemented the reach and influence of VDP will grow, leading to more support for their programmes and saving lives in Africa.

Follow The Virtual Doctors Project on Twitter and Facebook.