When the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the world, my work with Plant With Purpose was significantly disrupted.
Our entire headquartered team switched to remote work. Our international teams all immediately halted travel. Not only was our ability to host tree planting events, sustainable agriculture training, and data collection affected, we were extremely concerned about what would happen if the virus arrived in one of our partnering communities. In remote, rural areas, medical care is often unavailable, and self-isolation in village settings is extremely difficult. Even in the best case scenario, the economic impact of the virus would create food insecurity and worsen poverty.
Thankfully… our communities stood strong.
Our investment in resilience paid off. Here’s how we began our campaign that led to these strong outcomes.
My main role was to communicate and promote our response, as it was being developed in real-time. This quickly took the form of a four-step process.
Develop a Communications Strategy
Dialogue Transparently with the Plant With Purpose Community
Create a Portal for Updates as New Information Arrives
Launch a Campaign to Equip Our Communities for a Response
STEP ONE
DEVELOP A COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY
In ordinary circumstances, one of Plant With Purpose’s guiding principles is to let our local partners lead our response. As the outbreak spread, our local partnerships were our biggest strength.
We decided that our main strategy for communicating with donors initially was to relay information from our international partners to them. Many donors have long established relationships with specific locations where our work is based.
I relayed our parnters’ messages via web, social media, and email. Here’s a preview of the social media posts that I designed and released:
STEP TWO
CREATE TRANSPARENT DIALOGUE
Because the spread of COVID-19 has been so disruptive and unprecedented, I thought that the organizations who have had the best communication strategies were those who opted for the route of authenticity. Brands that came across as especially human, even to the point of admitting surprise and uncertainty, were the ones that stood out.
To help Plant With Purpose achieve this, I revisited the Grassroots Podcast to record an impromptu episode with our CEO to have an open discussion about where do we go from here. We were in the process of planning our second season, but this special episode got bumped to the front of the line as a bonus release. It was a more stripped down episode, no special guests, but it felt like the right move.
Listen to the COVID-19 special episode from the Grassroots Podcast
STEP three
create a portal for new information
We launched a special COVID-19 landing page on our website, where we could compile all the special releases of information thus far and continue to add reflections and updates from staff members.
Visit the COVID-19 landing page of plantwithpurpose.org
STEP four
equip our communities
Plant With Purpose has long-established relationships with some of the world’s most vulnerable communities, and has earned their trust for years. During the pandemic, it became apparent that this trust would give us a unique position to help during a time of crisis.
But how?
We determined that it would be best to keep our response flexible, being able to adapt as the situation evolved. Using the familiar image of the disease curve, we outlined three potential scenarios– one we’re in, one we hope to avoid, and one that seems inevitable.
As an unexpected Earth Day campaign, and extending beyond, we seek to raise $400,000 to help our communities respond to the outbreak in the most appropriate and advantageous way possible.