Dignity Health approached Upworthy to showcase an act of humankindness through a story of people improving the lives of others.
The team defined "humankindness" as an act of humanity toward others that feeds, and potentially heals, the human spirit. These acts of substance and depth might be profound feats of heroism, or small, refreshing gestures of generosity; above all they should reveal empathy, selflessness, and respect, qualities that reflect the values we strive to demonstrate through our content at Upworthy.
We discovered E-Nable, a volunteer-based organization providing 3D-printed prosthetics to children in need. One of them, Ethan Brown, was born with a "different" hand.
By showcasing E-Nable's history and life-changing work, altering effect it's had on Ethan and his mom, Melina, we were able dig into the emotional elements of one person's story to access the bigger themes of what it means to make a difference in someone's life purely out of the kindness of one's heart. We know that highlighting stories that focus on an individual delivers engaging, scalable, and extremely shareable impact, and Ethan's story gave us the opportunity to do just that.
From there, we tested several story elements and video cuts and implemented learnings to optimize for retention, engagement, completion, and shareability. And after nailing down the perfect storytelling formula, we blasted out the video, along with a slate of content of other acts of humankindness out to our audience via Facebook and Twitter, onsite on Upworthy.com, and to our dedicated community of daily newsletter subscribers over the course of two months.
Our campaign proved that highlighting purpose-driven mission can also drive company performance. Our video received 67 million impressions and over 1.2 million views, with campaign-related content averaging 60,000 page views. In total, the campaign drove 543,000 social interactions (481,000 likes; 14,000 comments; and 48,000 shares).
The bigger bonus: Upon seeing our video, the ruler of Dubai, Sheik Maktoum, pledged a multiyear, multimillion-dollar partnership with E-Nable. The partnership was announced at the annual Destination Medicine conference, hosted in Dubai by the Al Jalila Foundation, which engages children in the field of medicine.
