For the past decade, more than 1,200 charities around the country have gotten free marketing and design help from advertising executives who volunteer during a one-day burst of creativity.
Now the firm behind CreateAthon, an annual event that enlists people in advertising to work for 24 hours to create promotional items, videos, websites, social-media campaigns, and other marketing and fundraising materials for charity clients, is seeking to expand its reach by turning the concept into a nonprofit.
The “CreateAthon” term was coined in 1997 by Riggs Partners marketing firm in Columbia, S.C., to describe its method of providing pro bono services to charities in a single-day blitz. The goal is to turn an idea into a final product within 24 hours.
“The theory was that we could actually serve more nonprofits through a constrained and focused period of time than we normally would be able to do if we sprinkled their work out all through the year,” says Teresa Coles, a partner at Riggs and CreateAthon’s co-creator. “Immediately, we saw that working together and embracing the time and budget constraints inherent in a 24-hour turnaround produced unprecedented levels of creative problem solving.”
A Long Night
Riggs began promoting the concept to advertising and marketing firms around the country in 2002; since then, more than 80 companies have sponsored the events, providing an estimated $15-million worth of creative services to charities. In 2007, CreateAthon on Campus began, and so far four universities have incorporated the concept into the curricula of their design and communications classes.
Charities that want assistance apply to the companies that run local CreateAthons. Most of the events take place during a designated pro bono week in October.
Among the participants in 2013 was the EGC Group, an advertising agency with offices in Manhattan and Melville, N.Y., that has run CreateAthon events annually since 2008. In the most recent event, it provided services to four charities, including a soup kitchen and a group that serves developmentally disabled children.
Despite working a long night, the staff looks forward to the event each year, says Nicole Larruri, EGC’s managing partner. “Beyond being an expression of goodwill, CreateAthon is a wonderful team-building exercise and an opportunity for people in various departments to work together in the creative process,” she says.
After years spent shepherding the concept along and absorbing administrative costs related to promoting it, Riggs recently introduced CreateAthon as a stand-alone charity.
The group is now forming a board, and Peyton Rowe, a communications professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, has agreed to volunteer as its executive director.
“It’s a real turning point for us,” says Ms. Rowe, who founded CreateAthon on her campus and runs the university’s version each spring. “We want to get the board established and have fundraising and strategic plans in place” by this year.
Here are some examples of the work created during recent CreateAthons:
Epworth Children’s Home
Ad agency: Riggs Partners
The result: This residential child-welfare charity in Columbia, S.C., wanted to make money by selling in grocery stores the ice cream it’s been making for its own cafeteria. The ad agency created the packaging and marketing materials.
Mitzie Schafer, the charity’s executive vice president, says she likes the simple approach of the packaging because it suggests the wholesomeness of the ice cream. She says the packaging will allow the charity to proceed with its plan to market ice cream, which it has produced for its own cafeteria since the 1930s, when it was an orphanage on a dairy farm. “We have no budget for this kind of work,” she says. “Our budget goes to our kids.”
National Museum of Animals and Society
Ad agency: Verynice
The result: This all-volunteer animal-welfare charity, after years of being a Web-only museum, this month opened its first physical exhibit in Hollywood, Calif., called “My Dog Is My Home.”
Verynice created an interactive display that encourages viewers to pretend they are homeless and then shows them the tough choices they would have to make in seeking food and shelter for themselves and their animals.
Carolyn Merino Mullin, the museum’s executive director, says she was impressed that the agency devised “this game of life that puts people in the shoes of someone who is living on the street with an animal companion and all the challenges that they face. It’s much more modern and high-tech than something we probably could have done ourselves.”
The Girl Scouts of Suffolk County (N.Y.)
Ad agency: EGC Group
The result: To attract new Scout leaders at a time when the number of volunteers was declining, the ad agency created a “Support Our Troops” campaign. It used that theme in print materials as well as television and radio ads that local stations broadcast for free. The number of adult volunteers has already started to rise, a sign that the approach worked, says Christine Terzella, director of public relations for the charity. “The pitch here makes you think more military, but then when you see the girl, hopefully it tugs at the heartstrings. “
Madison County (Ill.) Historical Society
Ad agency: Think Tank PR and Marketing
The result: A new website to replace a basic one the nonprofit used as a placeholder after hackers destroyed a previous site. Mary Westerhold, the historical society’s archival library manager, says the ad agency created a website that is easy for staff members to update and that for the first time allows the charity to accept donations and sign up volunteers online. The site has been online for only a few weeks, “but I do feel it is helping us get noticed,” Ms. Westerhold says.
