The Insight: The frequency and severity of catastrophic storms and natural disasters, coupled with shifts in insurance culpability and responsibility have left people frustrated and scared. The 24 hour news cycle puts the destruction and disaster on full display and people are realizing the full impact of the devastation.
In late September 2024, Hurricane Helene caused widespread catastrophic damage and numerous fatalities across the Southeastern United States. Less than two weeks later, the same region was hit by Hurricane Milton. This initiative was created to support all the communities impacted by those back-to-back hurricanes.
Local United Way chapters immediately began responding in the community. United Way Worldwide needed to develop a scaled effort to increase public engagement at a national level to ensure continued support and support the teams on the ground in those communities.
The Idea: The United Way Benefit for Hurricane Relief was created as a moment of reflection and hope to tap into the cultural collectivism to help rebuild for those that have lost everything. A nationally televised benefit to engage a wider consumer network and develop additional streams of funding for response relief and long-term recovery.
The Activation: We developed The United Way Benefit for Hurricane Relief, a one-hour special that brought together some of the biggest names across music, television and entertainment to mobilize communities and raise critical funds for relief and recovery following Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which caused an estimated $50 billion in damage. Performers, partners, and celebrities, particularly those from the impacted areas, came together with music, words of encouragement and hope to help raise funds for those impacted. It included performances from Brittney Spencer, Chris Janson, Clay Aiken, Jonathan McReynolds and Tyler Hubbard with special messages and appearances by Backstreet Boys, Billy Bob Thornton, Billy Burke, Blake Shelton, Carly Pearce, Cedric The Entertainer, Cody Alan, Jackson Dean, JB SMOOVE, Kelsea Ballerini, Max Thieriot, Nate Burleson, Stephen Colbert, Taye Diggs, Zac Brown Band, alongside real life heroes Mark Starling and Tank Spencer and more. The benefit was nationally televised to engage a wider consumer network and create additional streams of funding that were distributed back to the local United Way for use in response relief and long-term recovery. Proceeds from the special, which aired on November 2 in Nashville supported the hurricane relief and long-term recovery efforts and benefited individuals and families across southeastern U.S.
The Benefit was conceived, organized, and executed in just 19 days thanks to strong engagement, collaboration and support from local United Ways, networks, and partners.
The seamless integration of the networks and skillsets across all organizations - content creation, media, and fundraising - allowed for the team to act quickly, decisively and definitively across all facets of the program. Leaning on each others' expertise created clear responsibilities and actions - without that clarity - it would have been impossible to engage this many people, across this many organizations and companies to create this level of impact.
