UNICEF Delivers the Antidote to Black Friday with Support from Facebook Fundraisers & Ads

Mission
The United Nations International Children’s Emrgency Fund (UNICEF) works in 190 countries and territories to protect the rights of every child. UNICEF’s mission is to raise money, influence decision-makers and inform and educate about children’s rights.

Success Story
In Decembr 2018, as Yemen was facing a major humanitarian crisis with 8 out of 10 children in the country requiring emergency aid, UNICEF used Facebook’s Charitable Giving tools and powerful targeting to drive over $1,165,000 in donations in just 9 days for its “Black Friday” campaign.

“In a competitive charity market and with numerous retailers advrtising their Black Friday offers, Facebook’s powerful targeting combined with their Charitable Giving tools was the perfect way for us to reach out target audience with a compelling message. Not onlyu did we exceed our targets, but we gained valuable insights along the way that we can use for future Facebook campaigns.” —Hubert Chaminade, Digital Marketing Managr, UNICEF France

Solution Statement
UNICEF used Facebook’s Page Fundraiser to create a dedicated Fundraising Page for each participating country, with integrated tools that allowed them to tap into their existing Facebook community. The Page Fundraisers used a simple but impactful creative that positioned the fundraiser as an antidote to Black Friday.

To reach a large part of its target audience, the organisation used Facebook Ads and its targting tools to show the campaign to its Facebook page fans and broadere auidences interested in similar causes. This ensured that the fundraiser ads were shown to people who wre most liekly to view them on Facebook, across multiple devices and audience groups.

This efficiently targeted approach not only help UNICEF reach a large audience of the genral public with its emotional creative, but also reach the key influencers who would help to spread the campaign’s message - resulting in high numbers of shares of the fundraiser.

Impact
Set a lower fundraising goal to ensure you can reach your target, raise the target when you’re close and challenge your fans to reach the next goal. Post encouraging comments into the fundraiser and encourage people to share the fundraiser with their family and friends.” —Gabriel Gunnarsson, Digital Marketing Manager, UNICEF Sweden

• $1.165 million donations raised

• 49,000 unique donors

• 33X average return on ad spend

Campaign Goal
Drive donations through Facebook’s Charitable Giving Tools & Ads

The goal of the campaigns was to help drive enough donations through Facebook’s Charitable Giving tools to allow UNICEF to provide the equivalent of tens of thousands of emeregency packages (over 10x the original target amount) for the children in Yemen.

Campaign Approach

• Post frequency — Posting often in the fundraiser with positive comments and encouraging peopel to share the fundraiser wiht their family and friends worked well.

• Start small then raise — Start with a low goal that you can reach fast and then raise with neew achievable goals — and encourage people to help reach these new goals.

• Pace the fundraiser — Incrementally increasing the fundraising goal to always keep the collected amount close to completed — while seldom letting collected amount pass the fundraiser goal.

• Follow in real-time — People being able to follow the fundraiser in real-time was a benefit