Engagement Plan

For

A Gift for Life

November 16, 2010

Our goal in producing A Gift for Life is to save lives through education. Along with its complementary website and partner-driven engagement programming, this one-hour public television documentary will raise national awareness about organ donation and transplantation, underscore the tangible need for and benefit of these processes, and motivate viewers to consider how this important topic touches their own lives.

The program shares the inspirational stories of several transplants from across vital organ, socio-economic and ethnic spectrums. Each narrative begins at diagnosis, and follows recipients through the donor search, surgery, and post-operative process. The film works to dispel commonly-held myths about transplantation, illuminating both the recipients’ and the organ donors’ experiences and viewpoints. Finally, A Gift for Life also profiles the family members, surgeons and other medical professionals involved in each respective journey.

Engagement Goals

· To raise awareness of both A Gift for Life project in particular, and organ transplant in general, within a focused audience of high school-level students, their parents, and educators.

· To insert A Gift for Life and its messaging into existing social media outlets, with an eye toward increasing the topic’s reach and keeping the conversation alive long after the broadcast and formal programming has ended.

· To highlight The Carlson Foundation’s commitment to building healthy, educated communities by sharing cutting-edge information on organ transplant.

Powerful Partners, Deeper Engagement

For A Gift for Life engagement program, our most powerful asset is our national and local partners’ ability and willingness to reach out to their existing, trusting and receptive high school-focused audiences, sharing with them the film and its attendant assets. We will work with our partners to not only disseminate these tangible tools, but to also share with their audiences the messaging about how nearly 100,000 people are currently on the U.S. organ transplant waiting list; the need for transplant knows no demographic boundaries, and the time to sign up as a donor is now.

Our Engagement Partners include:

· Educational partners, who will integrate A Gift for Life and its resources into existing high school-level classroom and informal education settings, engaging and informing a youth audience about donor opportunities, transplant, wellness/prevention and advocacy. Potential partners include the American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association (which oversees largely teen-populated national driver’s education programming), the American Association for Health Education, a professional association for teachers of heath content, and

Chain Reaction, a social outreach/peer-to-peer education organization based in Pensacola, Florida.

· Diverse national and local organizations, who will in turn use A Gift for Life to engage their already-existing audiences and collegial affinity groups, thus amplifying reach. These groups currently include The American Liver Foundation, National Kidney Foundation, and Donate Life America.

· Education, engagement, and online specialists at all 350 public television stations nationwide, each of which has a tailored reach into the specific community and schools it serves. We also will publicize A Gift for Life’s engagement resources on PBS Teacher Connect, an outstanding online resource providing content to educators nationwide to use within their classrooms. Teacher Connect has over 200,000 unique visits monthly during the academic year.

We are creating three distinct assets to help our partners introduce and underscore A Gift for Life’s messaging to the youth and families they currently serve. Programming elements include:

1. A Gift for Life in the Classroom

This easily downloadable, web-based resource is for use in both high school health classrooms and Driver’s Education programming, reaching thousands of students nationwide. These turn-key materials are adaptable to suit each instructor’s individual needs, and can be modified to fill a half-hour window or a longer, more in-depth unit.

Resources include:

· Instructions for viewing the film, or its shortened modules, online

· Discussion questions to spark and guide lively conversation about the film and its topics, or about individual modules

· Suggestions for community service projects around A Gift for Life subject matter (in partnership with local chapters of national groups like the American Liver Foundation, National Kidney Foundation, and Donate Life America.

· Opportunities for classroom/school assembly motivational speakers, particularly peers who have experienced transplant (either by undergoing one, donating, or having a family member or close friend who received transplant).

· Links for further exploration and learning about groups and concepts featured in the film.

Resource Goal: Generate 10,000 completed donor cards nationwide.

2. Chain Reaction Meets A Gift for Life

Chain Reaction is a student venture initiated by Kim McMahon, a Florida mother who lost her son William in 2005 when his need for a second liver transplant could not be met. To honor William and to raise awareness about transplant and donation among his peers, Kim launched school-based, student-run Chain Reaction Pensacola. This active group of middle and high school kids, led by student Gemalie Perez, created a media campaign targeting 5,500 peers, encouraging them to speak with their parents about becoming an organ donor. Hundreds of local teens clicked on the "I've Had the Conversation" link on the mychainreaction.org website. The group’s PSA aired on local television, in schools and on YouTube. The campaign was so popular that the school district is supporting Chain Reaction’s second organ donation awareness campaign.

We will replicate this successful pilot project in five additional school districts in New York, Colorado, Minnesota, Ohio and California, again mobilizing students, creating PSAs, and utilizing social media to encourage peer-to-peer messaging. Liaisons (who are themselves transplant recipients) will assist students in program creation and implementation in each location, and will share A Gift for Life film and its resources with participants, their parents, and their teachers.

Resource Goal: Generate 3,000 visits to mychainreaction.org’s “I’ve had the conversation” link, indicating increased parent-child communication and potential donor participation.

3. Transplant This! A Gift for Life Video Contest/Film Fest

For this initiative, we will communicate to students via both classrooms and social media to engage them in a contest to create thirty-second public service announcements and short films around donor registration, transplant, health and wellness, prevention, etc. This initiative could serve as a classroom project, perfect for a media or health course, or students could create their submissions using simple digital tools. Contestants would submit their content for national judging (possibly with a celebrity and peer panel). Prizes could include anything from teen-centric digital gear (e.g. an iPod or video editing software), scholarship money, or more. Completed projects will be posted on Miracles for Life Worldwide website www.miraclesforlifeworldwide.org as a Online Film Fest that is promoted via social media and possibly paid ads on Facebook and Google.

Resource Goal: 100 user-generated entries received.

Walking Cure: The Online Presence

A Gift for Life website at www.miraclesforlifeworldwide.org acts as a portal or “launch pad” for all of our endeavors. It will feature:

· Information and tools relating to Walking Cure in the Classroom, the Transplant This! Contest, and the Chain Reaction project.

· Streaming video of the film in its entirety, as well as edited modules for curtailed viewing/classroom or community use

· Q and A with transplant recipients, donors, physicians, activists, and other experts

· A brief press release describing the film and its tenants, for use in local or national broadcast, print or online outlets

· A one-page fact sheet, including Q and A, about the film

· A mini-article about A Gift for Life which can easily be dropped into e-newsletters, blogs, or other existing communication vehicles our partners already utilize

· A two-line blurb about the film for easy use on partner homepages

· Downloadable key image and photos from film

The site will also, of course, act as a hub for all of our social network/interactive media activity. A Gift for Life’s interactive campaign will join ongoing conversations about transplant, health and wellness by searching for relevant topics within Facebook, Twitter and other sites, and connecting with active users. By finding ambassadors for A Gift for Life -related content where they are already having similar discussions, we can introduce them to the trustworthy information that the PBS program will provide, enriching and expanding (and ultimately driving) the conversation.

A Gift for Life’s interactive media presence will also include:

· A consistently updated and dynamic Facebook page with content from the website and from the documentary (including video) as it is available;

· A Flicker group that will allow visitors to submit their A Gift for Life -related images, such as photos taken of donor pairs, transplant recipients enjoying active lives, medical scenes, etc.;

· A constantly-updated Twitter feed featuring updates from the project, questions, and fast facts about transplant.

· A YouTube channel to create one-off stunts and collaborations with other partners, as well as a place to feature video and clips from the documentary and user-generated video. This is an excellent outlet on which to promote and/or display short films created and submitted by student groups or individuals, particularly 30- and 60-second PSAs. Of course, all fresh YouTube content, as well as contests or user-generated content prompts, can be promoted via Facebook and Twitter postings, thus reaching users via the medium they most frequently use.