Principal Investigator: Audrey Wubbenhorst Research Assistants: Nikita Ravi and Robert Van Horne Funded by: Last updated: May 19, 2020 OVERVIEW Food Banks Canada is dedicated to assisting Canadians living with food insecurity, in collaboration with the country’s food bank network. The organization is focused on maximizing collective impact, strengthening local capacity and reducing the need for food banks. The organization directly supports 630 food banks across the country and indirectly supports 2,300 others. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Food Banks Canada saw supplies were quickly running out due to an increase in food bank visits. On March 18, 2020, Food Banks Canada sent out a call for $150 million in donations to combat the impact of COVID-19. On April 26, 2020, Insight Productions Ltd., in collaboration with the four major Canadian broadcast networks and Food Banks Canada, brought prominent Canadians and the creator community together to produce Stronger Together; a virtual salute to front-line workers while raising funds to support Food Bank Canada’s COVID-19 relief efforts. These Canadians included artists, actors, athletes and activists. The following case study outlines the planning, communications, public response and overall outcome of Food Banks Canada’s Stronger Together program. Website and Social Media Accounts foodbankscanada.ca @foodbankscanada strongertogethercanada.ca @insightproductions insighttv.com @foodbankscanada @foodbankscanada @strongercanada @strongercanada @insightprod @insight.productions @foodbankscanada @foodbankscanada @insightproductionstv F o r m o r e c a s e s t u d i e s , p l e a s e v i s i t : 0 2 c o v i d 1 9 c o m m u n i c a t i o n s . c a Food Banks Canada puts out call for $150 million amid COVID-19 pandemic On March 18, 2020, Food Banks Canada sent out a news release urging Canadians to make monetary donations, with the goal of raising $150 million. The organization explained that many food banks only keep enough stock for only 10 to 14 days for usual clients and that, due to the economic impact of COVID-19, numbers were expected to rise. As stated in the March 18 release, the donations were to be put towards: Providing local food banks with resources to adapt client delivery processes Managing demand with a decrease in volunteer resources Purchasing much needed staples Helping clients in quarantine by providing essential food supports to them With many Canadians stockpiling two weeks of essentials, Food Banks Canada CEO Chris Hatch explained that for individuals struggling with food insecurity this was not financially possible. It was also predicted that the country would enter a recession following the pandemic, which would continue to accelerate the number of food bank visits across Canada. A full copy of the March 18, 2020 release from Food Banks Canada can be found in Appendix A. Image source: Food Banks Canada F o r m o r e c a s e s t u d i e s , p l e a s e v i s i t : c o v i d 1 9 c o m m u n i c a t i o n s . c a 0 4 Canadian organizations unite to plan Stronger Together Before the event planning began, Insight Productions, along with the four major networks, had to decide which not-for-profit organization would be its partner. Covid19communications.ca had the opportunity to interview Food Banks Canada’s Chief Development Partnerships Officer, Tania Little. Little stated that she was elated that Food Banks Canada was the unanimous choice for the partnership amongst the deciding group. More excerpts from the interview can be found on pages 12-13. The entirety of Stronger Together was planned and produced within a two and a half week period. The team at Insight Productions approached major broadcast networks across Canada with a proposal to air the production, commercial-free, on radio, television and on- demand networks. The four major Canadian broadcasting networks (Bell Media, CBC/Radio Canada, Corus Entertainment, Group V Media, Rogers Sports & Media) agreed to air the program, taking no profits, across all media outlets. Little reported that within the span of five days, around 25 networks were confirmed to show the broadcast and by the time the program went live, there were over 360 streaming platforms on board. A full list of broadcast channels can be found in Appendix B. Securing talent for the broadcast was an easy task for the team. Once people began to get engaged with the project, the creator community, along with well-known Canadians, were calling and asking to get involved. There was no buy-in for any of the individuals who participated. Those interested stated that they wanted a way to thank front-line workers and support their communities. Some of the talent confirmed by April 23 included: Celine Dion, Tessa Virtue, Will Arnett, Serge Ibaka and the cast of Schitt’s Creek. F o r m o r e c a s e s t u d i e s , p l e a s e v i s i t : c o v i d 1 9 c o m m u n i c a t i o n s . c a 0 5 Stronger Together takes to social media to debut its star-studded line-up On April 22, 2020, Stronger Together began to launch its social media channels. The first post on its Instagram page (Figure 1.1) was simply announcing the event and the main networks it would be broadcasted on. On Twitter, the first tweet (Figure 1.2) took place the following day with more information on the purpose of the event along with the date and time. All tweets were published in English and French and used the hashtags #StrongerTogether and #TousEnsemble. FIGURE 1.1 FIGURE 1.2 First post on the @strongercanada First post on the @strongercanada Instagram page from April 22, 2020 Twitter page from April 23, 2020 Bell Media led the creation of a Stronger Together website dedicated solely to the event. The website featured a list of confirmed participants, a brief description of the event, as well as links to its social media accounts. It was updated regularly with what television and radio networks the public would be able to tune-in from. It also provided a list of streaming services that would have access to the show. F o r m o r e c a s e s t u d i e s , p l e a s e v i s i t : 0 6 c o v i d 1 9 c o m m u n i c a t i o n s . c a By April 23, Stronger Together had more than four dozen confirmed Canadian icons for the broadcast. The full list of Canadians who participated in Stronger Together can be found in Appendix C. This was set to be the biggest multinational broadcast in Canadian history. Website and by-text donation services overwhelmed with traffic Prior to airing, Food Banks Canada made sure to get extra bandwidth to support the expected increase in traffic and brought in a second server. The team notified banks and payment processors of the fundraiser to limit the number of transactions being marked as suspicious. Despite this, Food Banks Canada experienced an influx of donations, causing its systems to malfunction. The system was set up to accept donations through text or by visiting the Food Banks Canada - Stronger Together giving page. The methods of donation were to be displayed in a banner (Figure 1.3) periodically throughout the 90-minute special. After working together over the two week period, Insight Productions wanted to ensure that Food Banks Canada got as much support as possible and made the decision to display the banner for a majority of the show. FIGURE 1.3 Stronger Together broadcast with donation banner at the bottom of the screen F o r m o r e c a s e s t u d i e s , p l e a s e v i s i t : c o v i d 1 9 c o m m u n i c a t i o n s . c a 0 7 Within the first 20 minutes of the special, over 50,000 people tried to make a donation. Little explained that she first realized something was wrong when she saw a tweet saying that the online system was not working. Shortly after, she saw another tweet from viewers who did not get a response when trying to donate through text. A tweet was promptly sent out, through @StrongerCanada, explaining the error (Figure 1.4). Thankfully, in true Canadian nature, a majority of tweets following this were focused on how amazing it was that Canadians from coast-to- coast had “broken” the donation links simply because of their enormous generosity. Figure 1.5 shows examples of this response from the public. In order to accommodate for the influx of donations, 24 employees of Food Banks Canada began answering the phone to help intake donations. It was through this teamwork and dedication that viewers were able to call in and donate. FIGURE 1.4 Tweet from @StrongerCanada explaining the reason for the malfunction FIGURE 1.5 Public response to the Stronger Together Canada website being overwhelmed with donation traffic F o r m o r e c a s e s t u d i e s , p l e a s e v i s i t : 0 8 c o v i d 1 9 c o m m u n i c a t i o n s .