Operation Smile is a non-profit organization that kicked off in the Philippines as a charity that offers free surgery to children who were born with cleft lip, cleft palate, and other facial deformities. Today Operation Smile is active in over 50 countries and is giving beautiful smiles and hope for a brighter future to children worldwide.
Beyond their awards for charitable work, Operation Smile has been acclaimed for their non-profit marketing as well. In 2009 their Director of Online Communities and Social Media, Eric Overman, received the Nonprofit Marketer of the Year award from the American Marketing Association (AMA). He was praised for this innovation in his social media campaign and use of the latest media technologies.
The organization is constantly looking for more donations, medical volunteers, and support, and they have been able to build on that through their social media campaign. In addition to their up-to-date website and blog, the organization enables social bookmarking and keeps Facebook Causes, Twitter, YouTube, and MySpace pages.
The social media outlet that has created the biggest buzz for Operation Smile is Twitter. The organization’s new social media strategist, Renee Hamilton, launched their newest fund raising campaign, 140 Smiles in May of 2009. The Twitter based campaign asks tweeters to donate to the NPO in hopes of raising enough for 140 smiles at $240 a smile (the cost it takes for each surgery).
Watch this video to learn more about it from Renee:
As Renee mentioned, Operation Smile was already active with Twitter and this campaign practically fell into their hands by simply monitoring the site. They were able the see the value in this technology and use it and test it and eventually make money!
Its also great to see that you don’t need a big team to run a social media campaign. Renee Hamilton takes care of it on her own. This is a tremendous thing for other non-profits to recognize when deciding on social media since so often a large team of people can be hard to find.
So far the 140 Smiles campaign has created 73 smiles!
Rather Be Abroad 
Operation Smile seems like great cause, and as said in the video, one that has been fearless in its marketing schemes. This goes to show you how powerful online communities can be as well as their effectiveness. People want to help and these online social media provide the means to allow these people the means to do so. Also interviews such as the one above through large online presences like Ragan help create buzz and another outlet to promote.
It appears as though Twitter might be the most valuable social media tool for NPOs. This is a very unique and interesting cause and its cool to see an organization helping people with a defect that you rarely hear about. If I’m not mistaken I believe SMAD professor Mike Grundmann underwent surgery for a cleft defect and he may be interested to hear about this. It’s also good to see that it is only taking one person to run their social media campaign because I have been thinking about helping small business with social media campaigns (on my own). Christine, if you plan on continuing research on this topic, I recommend you check out Soles 4 Souls. I work at Finish Line and we partnered with them to help donate shoes to children in need. I just went to their site and appears as though they are active within social networks. 😉
Thanks for the tip. I believe I’ve heard of Soles 4 Souls before. They are able to change lives by providing something we take for granted everyday. Also reminds me of TOMS.