Branding a Unicorn Nonprofit

Worldreader.org

Branding and growing a unicorn NGO

Paper is heavy, and that’s just one reason why books can be a pretty scarce thing in developing countries — shipping is expensive, slow and hassle-heavy. Enter our client, Worldreader.org. In partnership with e-reader companies, local publishers and telcos, Worldreader is helping schools and families in these nations bypass paper and move straight to e-books. They’re working hard (and smart) to solve the problems of distributing e-readers because once that problem is solved, delivering the books themselves is so so so much easier.

Co-founded by ex-Amazonian David Risher and ex-ESADE marketing head Colin McElwee, Worldreader had a highly successful early trial run in Ghana, ultimately reaching 80,000 people.

Team BKW helped rocketship Worldreader.org and set their brand messaging before they even applied for their 501c3 status. BKW began working Worldreader in 2009, when we designed and built their first product, ebookish, a highly communicative website.

2012 website

In 2012, Worldreader approached us again, looking to re-design their website with enhanced publishing and communications flexibility. We built them a powerful site that gave them all that, plus incredible fundraising functionality. The site featured traditional fundraising tools to facilitate donations, as well as enhanced social features designed to empower anybody to run a fundraiser on behalf of an organization. Organizations using Worldreader’s tools could effectively boost fundraising by rallying their communities of supporters.

*Note: Worldreader.org has evolved substantially since our work with them, but we are happy to say that their current website has retained the look & feel of our design.

Social media activation

Next, BKW Partners created highly effective social media content to support Worldreader.org‘s entry in Chase Giving Awards. The content we created was designed to be shared by the Worldreader team across their tremendous community of friends and supporters, including technology industry leaders like Bill Gates and authors John Grisham and Margaret Atwood. Monster kudos to the Worldreader team who organized an absolutely killer “ground game” organizing loads (and loads) of people to spread their message.

Worldreader was one of the youngest contenders in the 2012 American Giving Awards which aired on NBC Dec. 8, 2012. Though the organization did not win the $1,000,000 grant, they DRAMATICALLY increased their social media following DRAMATICALLY, and enjoyed long-lasting follow-on benefits of their participation in the awards event.

Grisham on Facebook

Worldreader enjoyed a shoutout from “America’s Favorite Storyteller,” John Grisham.

E.L. James on Twitter

Popular author E.L. James amplified Worldreader’s important message to her one million+ followers.

Margaret Atwood on Twitter

“The Handmaid’s Tale” author Margaret Atwood encouraged her readers to vote for worldreader, and help the world’s children.

Easter Eggs

Worldreader relies on community donations and engagement for their success. We were thrilled to help them develop a fun, innovative, and unique way to make their donors feel valued. We built Easter Eggs into Worldreader’s site to spotlight people who had positively impacted the organization.