Food For The Poor
Florida-based Christian charity providing food, other basics, and opportunities for long-term development to impoverished families and communities in 17 Caribbean and Latin American countries. Meltwater's influencer database, media monitoring, and reporting help FFP generate support.
Meltwater Enables Food For The Poor to
Target influential communicators to connect with them and distribute FFP's message
Accurately assess the impact of their communications in a multi-media landscape
Perform multiple functions from a single platform
Challenge
Keeping Up with a Rapidly Evolving Landscape
Today's changing media landscape is proving tricky for large relief organizations tasked with moving quickly. FFP was struggling to identify journalists knowledgeable about their issues, including malnutrition, housing and unsafe drinking water, and access to medical care. Measuring the pick-up and reach of their news releases by country was difficult, as was evaluating the overall impact of their communications efforts. Managing separate providers for news releases, newsletters, and social media was both inefficient and costly.
"Our biggest challenge is reaching global audiences that understand that, in the end, helping one country's neediest people actually helps all countries. Unfortunately the media environment now is so fragmented and noisy, and it's changing moment by moment."
Kathy Skipper, Director of Public Relations, Food For The Poor
Solution
Tools to Manage and Measure Success
Food For The Poor uses Meltwater's influencer database to identify and establish contact with journalists sorted by geography and expertise. They also added Meltwater Impact Reports to the mix recently, and use these to report on the effectiveness of their news releases and the impact of their messages on traditional and social channels. Metrics by country are now available to help them efficiently channel their resources. Being able to send out news releases and newsletters from a single platform is also a major convenience.
"Poverty in developing countries is unlike poverty in the US, in both scope and response. Meltwater is helping us get the attention of relevant newspapers, TV, radio, bloggers, and social media. Meltwater is our outreach and distribution tool. It also provides us with all of the analytics we need to track the hits we're getting, assess our global reach, and report our results."
Kathy Skipper, Director of Public Relations
Summary
Meltwater Helps Food For The Poor
Identify and connect with influential communicators
"Our challenge is to help people see that in developing countries there is no safety net. Meltwater helps us get the attention of a diminishing array of journalists covering issues that are international. Meltwater's global media outreach helps us save the lives of our smallest, youngest, and most vulnerable."
Generate donations using targeted newsletters and releases
"Communicating what is being done to help the poor in the countries we serve speaks to the hearts of others. Meltwater helps us evaluate and share the stories of what we and our donors are doing through Food For The Poor. This inspires other people to realize that they also can be part of the solution to getting people out of poverty."
Accurately assess the impact of their communication efforts
"We recently added Meltwater Impact Reports to our toolbox. We're already looking forward to being able to drill down into certain releases and discover what the value was to the organization. These reports will tell us how often our news releases are being shared and which channels they're appearing on."
— Kathy Skipper, Director of Public Relations, Food For The Poor
