On June 18th, PublicSquare helped ‘Journalist for Human Rights’ (JHR) broadcast a live conversation between Activist Siyabulela Mandela and CTV Chief Anchor Lisa Laflamme.

In this case study, we’ll cover the following:

1. JHR’s goals for the campaign
2. How PublicSquare helped
3. What we achieved together
4. What we learnt for next time

JHR’s goals for the campaign

Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) is Canada’s largest international media development organization based in Toronto. Its mission is to “empower journalists to cover human rights stories objectively and effectively”. JHR has partnered with more than 400 media organizations in 28 different countries to train over 15,650 journalists whose human rights stories have reached over 64.5 million people.

Historically, JHR has largely relied on a yearly in-person gala to raise funds for their important efforts. However with COVID-19, they needed to find another method to spread awareness about this mission and still hit their yearly goals. For their fundraising campaign they had a few specific goals:

• Live: Important conversations should be broadcast Live
• Brand: The live broadcast should be JHR branded
• Engage: Audience members should be able to ask questions and respond back Live
• Donate: Audience members should be able to donate at anytime during the Live event
• Build Loyalty: Audience member data should be collected so they can get in touch with them later

The conversation between activist Siyabulela Mandela and CTV Chief Anchor Lisa Laflamme was one in a series of conversations JHR was looking to broadcast live to an online audience.

How PublicSquare helped

Product

Based on just a few key pieces of information from JHR, PublicSquare generated a custom branded event page which JHR was able to share to their email list + on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Training

As most people do not have experience with hosting events with a Live online audience, PublicSquare offered pre-event training to event panelists to ensure they felt confident and ready to go on event day!

Marketing

To generate buzz and maximize audience members, PublicSquare generated specific event links which JHR was able to share on all the different social media channels.

Live support

PublicSquare also provided live support (in case it was needed) through the whole event so that our clients don’t feel that we’ve left them hanging as they get used to the new technology.

What we achieved together

The ‘Impact of COVID-19 on South Sudan’ was the JHR’s first live broadcast in their series of conversations designed to raise awareness and funding for important issues. With the help of PublicSquare, JHR gained some great early traction on their goals:

• Total Sign-ups = 170 people
• Total Live Attendance = 90 people
• Total Views (includes post-event views) = 150 people
• Total Audience engagement = 55 pieces of feedback

What we learnt for next time

The event was a great success and JHR shortly followed afterwards with broadcasting another live event with PublicSquare. We feel more and more confident that PublicSquare is really able to help organizations like JHR achieve their important goals. But we’re also looking to do even better as we grow. Specifically:

• Event Sign-up & Reminder Email: We would like to send a calendar invite right away to anyone who signs up for the event so they can remember the date. We would also like to remind them an hour before event start time to join.
• Post Event Loyalty Building: We would like to point audience members to an interactive link at the end of the event which goes through the conversation highlights and allows audience members to re-share amongst their social circles.