Winner: CA Technologies - Earth Day 2010
CA Technologies’ third annual Earth Day 2010 volunteer program was a company-wide initiative in which employees participated in community volunteer activities in cities across the United States as well as in Australia, Canada and India. Volunteers and team captains helped identify local nonprofits and coordinate each of the 15 projects and locations.
With a PR goal of increasing local media coverage around the activities, extensive research on environmental, philanthropy and tech coverage was done for each location. Media alerts were designed to read like hard news—covering tough environmental issues being addressed by CA Technologies volunteers. While the media coverage was a challenge geographically, it paid off, with 23 print media hits, four TV segments and one radio mention across 12 markets.
Nearly 200 CA Technologies employees took part in the initiative, which helped gain the company a ranking by Newsweek as one of the top 50 greenest companies in 2010. —RD
CSR Event Campaign Tip: “When conducting a simultaneous event in various locations, you must be prepared to deal with a high volume of requests from reporters and be able to meet the deadlines quickly, regardless of time zones,” says Kelley Schultz, director of PR, North America, at CA Technologies.
Honorable Mentions:
Siemens Foundation/Discovery Education – Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge: Now in its second year, the WCCTWC program encourages grade school students to create solutions to environmental problems in their schools and communities across the country. More than 13,000 students participated in the 2010 initiative, which will be expanded to high school students for the 2010-2011 school year.
Edelman – Brita FilterForGood Helps Jack Johnson Tour Reduce Plastic Bottle Water Waste: During Jack Johnson’s 2010 North American tour, Brita provided Brita Hydration Stations to concert goers, the band and crew in an effort to awareness among consumers about how small changes can make a big difference.
Hafslund and PR-operatorene – Hafslund’s Children’s Climate Festival: Hafslund challenged elementary school students to come up with solutions to save energy in their schools. Winning entries were exhibited at the Children’s Climate Festival—an event that attracted 35,000 people.
PwC/Edelman – PwC’s Presence at the National Conference on Volunteering & Service: As the Education Plenary Corporate Lead at NCVS conference, PwC helped guide a program focused on leveraging service to advance education reform, reinforcing its commitment to help advance youth education and developing future leaders.
MassMutual Financial Group – MassMutual Completes Solar Installation: In September 2010 MassMutual invited media and local officials to a press conference to reveal newly installed solar panels to its facility. Local media outlets as well as nearly 100 online and print publications covered the press event across the country, generating increased awareness of the financial institution’s commitment to sustainability.
Peel District School Board – Leadership Now!: Through its Leadership Now! 2009 student leadership conference, the Peel District School board—in one of the largest districts in Canada—brought together 7,000 people to educate, motivate and inspire students on global issues.