Academic Value of Study

This report seeks to use NKF as a case-study to analyze the effectiveness of social media strategies for non-profit organizations and provide recommendations on strategies that non-profit organizations can adopt.

Background

Who is NKF?

NKF is the largest kidney foundation in Singapore, helping out close to 2/3 of the total number of patients in Singapore who have been diagnosed with kidney failure. Their work involves promoting kidney transplants as well providing quality subsidized dialysis treatment in their dialysis centers. Aside from helping patients, they also spend a lot of their time in organizing various events to increase public awareness on kidney failure as well as conducting health screenings.

Then

Since inception, NKF has been one of the better known and successful charities in Singapore. Their annual Charity Show, that was used to raise awareness and funds, was very well received by the public and at its peak, the charity managed to raise over $62 million in donations and grants to support their cause.

However, their credibility was significantly affected when a widely publicized legal battle in 2005 revealed that funds had been misappropriated by their then CEO T.T. Durai. Support for the organization fell drastically and continues to fall despite government intervention to help rebuild public confidence. The backlash that they received also led them to retreat away from the public eye.

Now

Almost 10 years later, the organization returned into the spotlight in 2015 by launching a 20-episode serial on channel 8. Their return was prompted by the increasing rate of Kidney failure in Singapore and the resulting increase in demand for their services. However, their current strategies seem to rely on the traditional media and has not developed much from a decade ago, possibly due to lack of awareness and understanding of new media. Furthermore, publicity efforts for their organization and events have been meek which could possibly suggest the management’s fear of backlash.

Objective

Our main goal would be to develop the social media presence and reduce their reliance on traditional media. Our strategies will be targeted at the following

1. Rebuilding public confidence back in the organization
2. Increasing awareness and support for their activities
   1. Increase overall support in terms of monetary donations as well as volunteers for events (50% increase in donations)
3. Increasing awareness of kidney failure and how people can help (possibly increase the number of donors)

Brief justification 

Possible Messages to be Delivered

• Donating is an easy process; there are more ways to donate
• Help NKF to save lives; we do it together
• Take care of your kidneys so we won’t have to take care of you

Methodology

Target Audience: Millenials (Age 21-35)

• Tech Savvy
• Higher usage of social media (familiar with the various platforms)
• More receptive to social media “marketing” as their mindsets are not as settled yet and also, there were less aware of the details of the 2005 incident
• More disposable income as some of the are just starting work
• More free time to participate in events as they have relatively less commitments and are free to plan their own schedules
  

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• Focus Group : Same as target audience. Through on word association
  • What are you donating habits? Frequency? Which organisations?
  • What do you feel about the NGOs in SG in general? Any particular organisation or campaigns that stand out to you?
  • Are you aware of NKF? Are you aware of any kidney donation possibility?Have you donated to NKF and what is the frequency

• Sentiments Measurement: Public Survey – likert scale
  • How you feel? Will you donate? What other things do you think is important? Will you participate in the activities? Donation habits/attitude towards charities?

• Secondary Research: News articles and blogs

• Problem Identification

• Competitor analysis (Social Baker)
  • Top content, most engaged campaigns (e.g. bucket challenge)
  • Benchmark KPI against competitors (Number of fans, total engagement last year, click through to website etc.)

• Campaign Message

• Set budget, A/B Testing for ad campaigns for Facebook Ads, EDMs, Instagram.

• Measure Awareness, Engagement, Word-of-mouth over 1 month, 3 months and 6 months

Social Media Platforms

Base for choice

• Current social media platforms utilized by NKF
  • As their marketing/corporate communications team is very small (~10 people), it would not be practical to utilize to many different platforms as it would be too troublesome to maintain
  • Strategies can be implemented faster as there is no set up time, employees already know the basic features of the platform and how to utilize them
  • They can tap on the existing followers in these platforms
• Popular apps/usage patterns of the target group
  • Ensure that we are reaching out to our audience
• Features of the social media
  • Can it support the strategies that we wish to suggest?
  • Is it easy enough for the managers to manage as well as monitor?

*While YouTube is also a feasible platform for NKF, the videos can easily be linked over to Facebook or uploaded on Facebook itself. Hence, we think that more emphasis should be spent on maintaining Facebook rather than YouTube.