The National Women’s History Museum #HelpUsBuildIt Campaign
#HelpUsBuildIt
The National Women’s History Museum is an important, relatively recent symbol of a perennial social justice movement. The efforts to build a brick-and-mortar museum have gained momentum over the past several years, resulting in the museum’s significant footprint on Facebook and Twitter. In March of 2016, coinciding with National Women’s History Month, the museum’s digital team moved to strengthen its social media presence by running a campaign asking the Museum’s followers to #HelpUsBuildIt by donating, nominating an American heroine, and challenging friends to spread word of the Museum’s efforts further.
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The Challenge
Tight Schedule
The museum had to plan and prepare their campaign to coincide with a national event that would not wait for deliberation.
Many Stakeholders
The campaign was a team effort that entailed coordinating feedback and contributions from museum staff, leadership, board members, and volunteers.
ParsonsTKO assisted the Museum in planning and executing the campaign with an on-demand consulting service. This included designing content and technical aspects of the campaign, anticipating and planning around challenges, and helping to cover gaps for the museum’s small communications team as they faced their greatest demands.
Our support helped the National Womens History Museum build their awareness campaign quickly, with confidence that the decisions they were making would accomplish their goals without overwhelming their staff. ParsonsTKO was on hand to answer questions and propose solutions to problems that were outside their normal day-to-day responsibilities.
Strategic & Tactical Support
Strategic Counsel
In the month run-up we had to the campaign, we helped the digital team identify the right tools, tone, and content to engage the museum’s audience. In just a few weeks, we built a plan that could work with the resources available.
Coaching
Through preparing for the campaign and reviewing performance as it began, we identified needs and technical challenges that would need to be addressed on an ongoing basis. Rather than simply break-fixing, PTKO’s focused on teach-fixing, bringing museum staff along on solutions.
Tactical Consulting
PTKO was available on a daily basis to give feedback on the effort as the campaign unfolded. These calls, emails, and videoconferences helped build upon successes, correct missteps and enhance next steps with careful consideration.
Software Evaluation
Considering the museum’s staff, schedule, and budget, we quickly identified the right mix of tools that would allow the team to collaborate and prepare for the campaign as quickly as possible by building off of past experience and existing expertise.
ParsonsTKO was helpful, proactive and readily accessible to staff. They demonstrated clear understanding of our mission and helped us craft a campaign that was dynamic and engaging to our audiences.
Melissa Williams, NWHM Communications Manager
Embedded and Holistic
Keeping to Schedule
Bringing our experiences to the planning process helped the team make decisions quickly so we could launch on-time.
Convening Power
As an embedded part of the team, we could participate in conversations and help coordinate efforts among all internal and external stakeholders.
Global View
We were on hand throughout the entire process, from planning to reporting, so understood the big picture goals of the effort and could put our recommendations in appropriate context.
Responsive & Available
We were on call to answer questions as they arose, helping propose solutions to problems quickly.