Staying Active and Hopeful
We live and lead by kindness. While the world struggles against the COVID-19 pandemic, Caffelli saw the need and leapt at a chance to help. We joined forces with Mercy Corps to aid their relief efforts by building Stream For Humanity, a virtual event involving Twitch streamers raising money for the COVID-19 Resilience Fund. How did we accomplish this? Let’s dig a little deeper.
Meeting the Need
One of Caffelli’s unique strengths is our relationships with influencers. We pride ourselves in implementing a rigorous vetting process with any potential influencer to ensure that they meet brand standards for each client. One benefit of spending so much time researching people is that it inevitably creates actual connections.
Over the years, we’ve found that the streamers and content creators we’ve worked with evolve quickly into lasting friends, people we mutually follow on social media and remain connected to. Essentially, when we recommend influencers to a client, it’s very likely that we’re recommending people we’ve worked with before or value as friends because of the trust we’ve built with them.
So, when Mercy Corps and Caffelli began discussing concepts for a Twitch activation, we had a go-to list of trusted streamers to reach out to. After ensuring everyone still fit the needs (we always vet streamers for each new activation, regardless of past relationships), we settled on a date and began the next steps: outreach and asset creation.
Where Giving and Gaming Meet
Something that makes this project special is how it realizes a vision Caffelli’s CEO created years ago. Marcelo imagined something he called GiveFTW, a non-profit concept where we connect charities to influencers, brands, and celebrities in order to spread their message to new audiences. It’s a natural progression, given that Caffelli is already about cultivating new and existing relationships.
With Mercy Corps and Caffelli discussing Stream For Humanity, Marc saw this as a “now or never” time for GiveFTW. All the elements were in place for a humble launch, so in conjunction with the Stream For Humanity event, as well as the birth of another non-profit venture named LifeMech, Caffelli built the GiveFTW branding, website, and social accounts.
Seeing a years-long dream come to fruition is exhilarating and also terrifying. With a lot riding on a successful event, inevitably we encountered some hurdles.
Unique Challenges
Of everything that could have posed an extra challenge, the biggest surprise was the availability of influencers themselves. We’d already settled on a May 2 date for the event, which created an aggressive but manageable timetable to work within. We’d soon learn that May 2 was a very popular date indeed!
Once Mercy Corps had approved our list of potential influencers, we began the outreach, only to discover that a sizeable portion of them had prior engagements on May 2 or had already promised to stream for a different charity during the month of May. While disappointing, this proved that we were connected to an awesome group of people who already felt compelled to give their time to a cause. Plus, everyone who was unable to participate asked if they could help in the future, allowing us to begin planning for a future event.
In the end, we secured 11 Twitch personalities for Stream For Humanity, each unique in audience and style. Things were getting really exciting!
Set Up for Success
The last element leading up to the event was support. We had to drive people to the Stream For Humanity landing page, which meant social media, ads, and of course a landing page needed to be created.
Not a problem! Content creation is one of our specialties!
Tonally, we wanted to ensure that all assets for our streamers (Twitter social, stream overlays, messaging guidelines) were kept conversational yet professional. It can sometimes be a tricky balancing act to ensure you target the right audience while still retaining the professionalism of your client, in this case Mercy Corps. We had some wiggle room to add some fun, but we also wanted to stress the importance of donations.
While written content is fairly straightforward, a more nuanced tactic was also implemented. Creating ads is a good start but knowing the most efficient use of ads is our bread and butter. We identified the best possible strategy to maximize Mercy Corps’ ad reach, ensuring their budget would be wisely spent.
The Day Arrives
May 2 rolled around, and we were ready for action. Saturday or not, Caffelli was at full attention, ready to support the Twitch streamers and ensure Mercy Corps’ message was getting delivered in the correct fashion.
We were a little shocked how smoothly things went. There’s a certain amount of hiccups expected from streams, but in the case of our 11 Twitch streamers, we found no issues with technology, messaging, or anything else. They all managed to get their streams running at the correct times and regularly delivered Mercy Corps’ messaging to their audience, resulting in nearly 12,000 viewers showing up to raise almost $7,500 for the COVID-19 Resilience Fund.
The biggest takeaway was seeing which streams showed the biggest success, with Smashley raising over $2,500 due in part to how she gamified donations with a charity menu. As she played Rock Band, she offered viewers different benefits when donating, such as song requests, adding light-up drumsticks, or drumming for an entire expert-level song in heels. The tactic worked great, giving us a wonderful example that we can pass on to other content creators for the next charity stream.
Sign Off
If you’d like to run a charity event of your own, we want to help! Learn more about GiveFTW at our website or via our Twitter handle, and then reach out to us at info@caffelli.com to get started.
