Project Description

Challenge

Roca, the Massachusetts-based non-profit organization dedicated to reducing recidivism for the highest risk young men and women in the state, celebrates each year with an annual fundraising breakfast attended by more than 500 leaders in government, law enforcement and business. In 2017, Roca welcomed a panel of top criminal justice reformers and was uniquely challenged to utilize this key moment to awareness and reach beyond previous years and to support a more significant fundraising goal through traditional and social media.

Action

To meet the challenge, Melwood developed a comprehensive multi-media strategy designed to help build Roca’s presence as a top thought leader in issues such as recidivism, criminal justice reform, community policing and more while help boost fundraising for the coming year by attracting new donors and other support.

  1. Media Relations: Melwood worked its extensive contacts in media to ensure the highest-level and most impactful reporters, columnists and producers knew about and could attend the event.
  2. Social Media: Melwood created a live coverage template of tweets to post during the event, ensuring each speaker was highlighted and tagged with important quotes and photographs. Melwood then live-tweeted the event and created future posts with images and quotes to share in the days and weeks after the event to further boost Roca’s reach.
  3. Event Planning and Videography: During the event, Melwood’s team managed media in attendance and then created graphics and videos (example) to post days after the event to further conversations about Roca online.

Results

The success of our joint effort with Roca was unmistakable. Roca was able to reformat its event to include perspectives from three important partners. The Chelsea Record, the leading local newspaper, ran the story both online and in print. In social media, Melwood’s live coverage of the event on Twitter allowed Roca to boost its reach to with important accounts and thought leaders on the day of the event and in the days after. On Facebook, reach grew to between 450 and 700 people, while most posts received 10 to 15 reactions, compared to the usual three to five reactions for each post. On Twitter, Roca’s posts received mentions and retweets from many prominent posters and the live tweeting portion received five to 10 likes per tweet, and two to five retweets, far more active than before.