NonProfit PR Awards: Corporate Nonprofit Partnerships

Campaign: Pound For Pound Challenge

Winner: Feeding America, General Mills & The Biggest Loser

Overeating is a chronic and widespread problem in the U.S.—approximately 130 million Americans are overweight or obese. At the same time, however, more than 36 million Americans are at risk of hunger, and one in eight people don’t know how they will get their next meal.

To tackle these dichotomous problems simultaneously, General Mills, NBC’s The Biggest Loser reality TV show and Feeding America joined forces to create the Pound For Pound Challenge. Its premise: Individuals were encouraged to participate by signing up at PFPChallenge.com, where they could pledge their weight-loss goals and mail Pound For Pound seals from specially marked General Mills products. Then, for every pound lost and seal received, General Mills would donate 10 cents to Feeding America.

To fuel participation in the competition, the team:

• Enlisted a national network of food banks, providing them with a local implementation toolkit;

• Leveraged The Biggest Loser audience members with in-show promotions;

• Promoted the campaign through General Mills brands, including Cheerios, Yoplait Light and Fiber One;

• Enlisted Subway’s support to leverage the chain’s e-newsletters and Web site; and,

• Built a grassroots movement by encouraging companies to hold employee Pound For Pound challenges in the workplace and to submit success stories to the dedicated Web site.

The partnership’s goal of simultaneously combating hunger and obesity was achieved in a big way. The campaign raised $750,000 for Feeding America, received pledges from individuals to lose more than 3.5 million pounds in total and generated more than 2,700 success stories on its Web site.

Honorable Mentions:

Entergy Corporation & Teach for America—Entergy partnered with Teach for America to engage in the wholesale transformation of the New Orleans public school system following Hurricane Katrina, investing $700,000 in 2008 and 2009. The result: More than 20,000 students in 140 local schools are being taught by one of the 650 Teach for America corps members in the area.

Galloway Group & Saunders Construction: Building Confidence in Kids—Saunders and the Galloway Group teamed up to launch a community initiative benefiting disadvantaged children and their families, in which Saunders employees volunteered their time to help give these kids a brighter future.

Honeywell, The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children & Peppercom: Got 2B Safe—This partnership provides parents and educations nationwide with information about abduction prevention. Messaging tailored to specific audiences—children, parents and educators—helped get materials into each of the 72,319 elementary schools in the U.S.

Jiffy Lube, AHA & Cone: Maintenance Partners for Life—In 2009, Jiffy Lube asked customers to donate $3 to the AHA’s Go Red For Women movement and committed to donate $1 for ever Jiffy Lube Gift Card purchased, which helped the team raise $1.3+ million in just six weeks.

Qorvis Communications, Keep America Beautiful & Philip Morris USA: Cigarette Litter Prevention Program—These organizations teamed up to reduce cigarette litter in nearly 200 communities nationwide, with strategic media outreach resulting in an estimated 4.6 impressions during the campaign’s seven-month duration.

Yum! Brands & United Nations World Food Programme: World Hunger Relief Movement—This team’s combined efforts to combat the growing and deadly consequences of hunger globally led to $20 million in overall donations for WPF, which covers the costs of more than 80 million meals.

November 9, 2009