NTC 2011

CASE STUDY DIGITAL STRATEGY Daniel Sieradski daniel@weRepair.org | @Repair_Dan

We seek to inspire Jews of all backgrounds to dedicate time and effort to the causes they're passionate about. What do you repair?

•  A Jewish parallel to HandsOn/Points of Light •  Founded in 2009 to: – Promote service as a core Jewish value

and as a viable and legitimate expression of Jewish identity

–  Increase the number of Jews engaged in volunteer service, the quality of their experiences and the impact of their efforts

– Support and advance the field of Immersive Jewish Service-Learning

– Develop the volunteer engagement capacity of the Jewish nonprofit sector

CHALLENGES

•  Evolving institutional vision and goals •  Steep learning curve •  Addressing multiple constituencies,

each presenting unique challenges: –  ~18-24 North American Jews (alienation, apathy) –  Jewish service-learning educators and practitioners –  Jewish nonprofit professionals (overload, burnout) –  Donors, board members and other stakeholders

•  Reaching beyond the usual suspects •  Serving Repair plus 18 grantee-partners, plus

campus, community and national partners •  Limited resources, competing priorities,

exigent circumstances

BUILDING A BRAND

•  Establish an identity by producing useful, relevant and engaging content & applications

•  Establish a narrative by telling compelling stories •  Establish expertise by aggregating the highest

quality resources in the space; be a tastemaker •  Establish a presence by being everywhere your

target constituents are •  Establish relationships through social listening •  Establish a professional network by extending

professional courtesies (retweet!) •  Establish trust by using and producing open

platforms and datasets; be transparent

THE BIG SPLASH

THE SLOW BUILD

•  weRepair.org (18-24 & others) –  Jewish Service Search Engine –  Repair News (legacy list) –  @weRepair –  facebook.com/repairtheworld –  Vimeo, YouTube, Flickr –  Jewcy, HuffPo, syndication

•  RepairLabs.org (practitioners) –  RepairJobs –  RepairLabs News –  RepairLabs Live (streaming) –  @RepairLabs –  facebook.com/repairlabs

THE RESULT

•  First 30 days, 2,700 unique visitors •  Last 30 days, 5,100 unique visitors •  32,000 unique visitors @2:30 min. ea. •  4,230 email subscriptions •  1,230 Twitter followers •  765 Facebook fans •  Anecdotal evidence of impact •  Successfully established as the go-to

source for Jewish service & volunteering •  Virtually all accomplished through

social media marketing/word of mouth

1 YEAR OUT

•  Focused mission, clearer priorities •  Greater exposure to and understanding of

needs and behaviors of both the field and target market

•  Greater clarity about most significant challenges to and weaknesses in our strategy

NEXT STEPS

•  New iteration of website –  Greater focus on grantee-partner programs –  More content for those outside target demo

•  Seasonal and passive ad campaigns •  New iteration of search engine

–  Improved UI –  FedWeb integration –  Data aggregation

•  Hiring of intern and volunteer army to operate as service shaliachs and shadchans

•  “Big splash” campaign

TAKEAWAYS

•  Be agile •  Be open, in theory and practice •  Be realistic •  Expect failure

–  The most worthy tasks are the ones at which you are destined to fail

•  Iterate and reiterate and reiterate and…