The Challenge
When Kind Campaign came to Elle in 2016, the organization had enjoyed spurts of coverage throughout their history, most typically created through the support of co-founder Lauren Paul’s husband’s celebrity status and ongoing drive to champion and celebrate their important work whenever possible.
Our Approach
Through our strategic planning process, we collectively mapped out the following priorities with Kind Campaign:
• Secure a regular pulse of media coverage for the organization
• Create more opportunities for strategically showcasing the mission and impact of the organization, not just their powerful relationships
• Develop new partnerships on behalf of the organization that result in both financial support and opportunities for storytelling
• Increase credibility and awareness in the education industry
Our Impact
Over the past four years, we have worked with the organization to ensure a steady drumbeat of coverage with spikes during key moments in time for the organization, such as during back-to-school and their tours. Some of the places they have appeared include: TODAY, Home & Family, The Doctors, Good Housekeeping, Reader’s Digest, Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper, Bustle, PopSugar, Seventeen, Parents, The Zoe Report, MAKERS, and many others. We also work to highlight their Kind Campaign tours regionally through broadcast appearances, such as Good Day LA and Good Day Chicago, for example.
Kind Campaign and Elle Communications have shared goals of building awareness for the nonprofit’s programs amongst teachers, administrators and school districts around the country. In an effort to build this knowledge base, we understand strategically that Kind Campaign should be talked about and celebrated by the media outlets that are being read by these educational decision-makers, both industry publications and education journals and mass-market publications. Elle has put Kind Campaign on the radar of education journals for each of their tours, also working alongside teachers and/or guidance counselors to pen op-eds about the power of kindness and stopping girl-against-girl bullying in the school halls, and beyond. Elle devised an education policy event around changing bullying policy in schools, specifically in Los Angeles, which is being planned for the fall.
We also understand that influencing the education space also means influencing the parents so we’ve also made deep inroads with the most popular parenting outlets, blogs, and events in the country including Parents Magazine, Red Tricycle, Mother.ly, MOTHER Mag, the Mamas Making It Summit, and more.
While the opportunity for travel to speaking events has been complicated by the birth of three children between the two co-founders during our time working together, we have secured a lot of interest and opportunities, such as SXSW, Create & Cultivate, and Social Good Summit.
Finally, following is a highlight of some of the most notable partnerships we have secured on behalf of Kind Campaign:
Elle secured a $200,000 donation from Eddie Bauer, which also included a trip for the Kind Campaign founders and celebrities Julianne Hough and Jessica Szohr.
Elle created a partnership between Kind Campaign and women’s jewelry brand, Kendra Scott, resulting in a $10,000 donation in exchange for one of Kind Campaign’s co-founders co-hosting an event in Los Angeles.
Secured Kind Campaign to be a partner alongside the YMCA and Good Morning America for the Reader’s Digest Nicest Places in America contest and campaign.
Secured Kind Campaign as a potential partner for HASBRO’s national kindness coalition and campaign.
Secured a national large-scale partnership for Kind Campaign in-stores across the country from Los Angeles to NYC with Bloomingdale’s resulting in $75,000 for the nonprofit.
Cultivated a partnership with Alo Yoga, hosting influencers for a private yoga event, slated to guarantee a $3,000 donation to the nonprofit on behalf of Alo's foundation, Alo Gives. And, with other longer term partnership discussions now already in the works.
Elle has supported a key collaboration between Kind Campaign and Kohl’s, driving sales of a signature T-shirt line with proceeds going back to Kind Campaign from every purchase.