The third Pro Bono Marathon helped 12 NGO projects

The Pro Bono Marathon in the Old Market Hall (Stará tržnica) started early in the morning. Professionals from advertising, communications and law companies gathered to help selected NGOs and propose concrete solutions according to their assignments. In total, 12 selected companies helped 12 NGOs that wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford their services. Most of the collaboration was related to the creation of advertising and communication strategies of the NGOs. However, a lawyer’s office and an IT consulting company have also offered their advice.

“If we want to look for good and functional solutions to problems – be it in education, social inclusion or community development – then uniting our capacities may be the right way when lacking resources. We believe that thanks to the Pro Bono Marathon, we have managed to create new connections and relationships between the world of business and the NGO sector that tend to last,” explains Monika Brošková, the programme manager of Pontis Foundation.

What campaigns have been created during the Pro Bono Marathon?

• Advertising and communication solutions:

Creative Department in collaboration with Proti prúdu

The Creative Department advertising agency helped the Proti prúdu non-profit organization with the campaign for its street magazine Nota Bene, of which there are 30.000 prints sold every month without any marketing support. When creating the campaign for the magazine, the agency focused on solving two issues. The first problem was the fact that Nota Bene is a society magazine, which goes unnoticed by people as they think it is solely about homeless people. The second problem according to the agency was that the people do not know about the high-quality content offered by Nota Bene. Creative Department thus suggested a redesign of the magazine, prepared a new logo and a new claim: Reading in Style at Home. From now on, the symbol of the magazine should be cardboard, which will be used in the key visuals. The agency suggested to the non-profit that it should further introduce the content of the magazine to the people on cardboard posters in underpasses with teasers of interesting articles in the magazine, which will let people know about the quality content. The agency also suggested collaborating with a book shop that will pack its books into cardboard packaging with a Nota Bene advertisement.

MUW Saatchi & Saatchi in collaboration with Equity

The Equity civic association came to the Pro Bono Marathon with the aim to get a starting package and a brand strategy for a new, inclusive primary school. They were helped by the MUW Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency that created an identity and a complete project communication package for the school. The agency came up with a concept that works with school-related terms present in the whole communication (e.g. reading list, voluntary financial contribution, writing assignment, syllabus, calligraphy etc.).

Istropolitana Ogilvy in collaboration with ETP Slovensko

“You’ll never believe what children from Roma settlements are capable of. You can make the move!” is the slogan of an interactive campaign accompanying the new programme to support the integration of children and students from segregated Roma communities, created by the Istropolitana Ogilvy advertising agency for ETP Slovensko during the Pro Bono Marathon. The aim of the campaign is to attract young people so that they sign up for the programme, become mentors of the children from the settlements and ultimately challenge stereotypes. The campaign is based on the idea that the solution of the so-called Roma issue is in our hands and that each one of us has the power to make the change happen.

Prime time in collaboration with Živica

The advertising strategy of Živica’s educational programme known as Zelená škola (Green School) has been created by the Prime time communication agency. It decided to base the campaign on less traditional topics such as collecting paper, chestnuts or raking leaves. The agency also suggested promoting the programme through critical thinking, environment and relationships. The campaign is targeted at two groups – mothers aged 25 to 40, for whom the agency created e.g. “The Ten Commandments of Positive Changes”, and young people under 26, who are targeted with Facebook calls to action. All of this aims to raise awareness of Zelená škola.

VISIBILITY in collaboration with Živica

During the Pro Bono Marathon, the online marketing agency VISIBILITY was given the task to create a communication strategy for Socrates’ Institute (Sokratov inštitút), managed by the Živica non-profit organisation. The aim of the campaign was to encourage young people to be brave enough and look at important topics from unconventional perspectives. The campaign created by the agency will be targeted at the broader public and will try to trigger discussions among young people on stereotypical topics with the claim: “Does it really have to be that way?”  The whole campaign will be managed in the spirit of change through dialogue.

TRIAD Advertising in collaboration with Dobre&Dobré

The TRIAD Advertising agency has prepared a communication campaign for the pro-social café Dobre&Dobré which tries to point out the things that make the café stand out. The aim is not only to retain the current customers of the café, but also to acquire new ones. The agency has thus designed a complete communication model with the idea that all people working in the café have their own, local stories. The customers have the opportunity to help them create the stories by every single visit of the café. The main idea is probably best expressed by the motto: You can also become a part of the café.

Adbee in collaboration with Proti korupcii

The civic association Proti korupcii (Against Corruption) has received a new campaign made by the Adbee advertising agency to encourage citizen participation in checking upon the public authorities. The target group of the campaign will be university students, who are often passionate about topics such as helping their society. Adbee thus came up with the motto: “We are looking for you and you are looking for us. Better together” and created the concept of weekend events for university students with an idea who are looking for something.

• IT Solutions:

Pixel Federation in collaboration with WellGiving

The WellGiving, o.z. team has collaborated with Pixel Federation to create a graphic and marketing concept for the Tri čerešne (Three Cherries) web portal. It is a donation portal where teachers will be able to ask for support for their ideas. The whole project was created with the aim to make Slovak children enjoy the school. Although their academic performance is adequate, our children do not feel happy at school compared to children in other countries. Pixel Federation has created the graphic design of the portal. Companies will be able to multiply the donations from people, support particular ideas of the teachers, but also to share functional equipment they have in surplus, along with their skills or knowledge. Parents will be able to support the idea of a teacher who wishes to teach differently and more interestingly and give children positive experiences thanks to field trips, new books, sports equipment etc.

SCR Interactive in collaboration with Svetielko

The representatives of SCR Interactive created a new visual identity and a website for the Svetielko (Twinkle) centre for handicapped children. The original version of the website was chaotic and rather mediocre with regard to technology. Therefore, SCR came up with a new, responsive web that is easy to navigate at the first sight, clearly describes the activities of the centre and sensitively communicates the stories of the employees and the clients themselves. The new responsive website will contain pages with descriptions of the activities, therapies, personal stories, pictures, the team and the pages of in

dividual branches. During the creation of the visuals, SCR focused on creating a website that will communicate the centre’s mission by personal testimonies, be it through the personal story of the centre’s director or through the testimonies of other clients. The parents of children with multiple handicaps can find their way through the therapies of care options more easily, and can view the whole range of services available at the individual branches. An important part of the output is the design of the newsletter and its linking to a simple free system that should facilitate the communication of the centre with the community. The website will also become a platform for donations from the public thanks to the integration of the darujme.sk donation service.

• Legal Solutions:

Allen & Overy in collaboration with My sme mesto

The attorney Mgr. Peter Šťastný and the legal assistant Mgr. Lukáš Lomenčík from the Allen & Overy law office helped the civic association My sme mesto (We are the City) during the Pro Bono Marathon. Together, they tried to define the possible solutions when limiting the ever-spreading visual smog that prevalently takes the form of outdoor advertising. They dealt with the issue at two levels – they discussed the already-existing advertisements, along with the ways of limiting the creation of new outdoor advertising spaces. The collaboration of the two subjects on this project will further continue.

• Consultancy and HR Solutions:

Accenture in collaboration with Via Iuris

The non-profit organisation Via Iuris has decided to join the Pro Bono Marathon because it needed help with making the work with its Salesforce CRM system more efficient. The company Accenture has decided to offer its services, analysing the current CRM settings of the non-profit in mere 10 hours. Besides, Accenture has suggested a new structure of the CRM so that the Via Iuris workers can keep records of their clients, donors, manage the contact details of their co-workers, the media and the various relationships between them. The new system will also help them record event participants of create mailing lists. Accenture has also created a separate part for keeping record of the stocks in the warehouse (t-shirts, notebooks and similar items) sold during the Biela vrana project.

Dell in collaboration with the Slovak Governance Institute

Dell has helped the Slovak Governance institute (SGI) to create a HR management strategy.  When creating the strategy, Dell pointed out problems that appeared to be highly important. Besides dealing with the high fluctuation, they suggested incorporating career and output management into the strategy, which further included strategic planning, the identity of SGI, organization and systems, defining the competences in the company, fundraising, the representation, knowledge management, and recruiting and selecting new people.

Inspiring lectures by company representatives attracted not only innovators into the market hall

Besides the Pro Bono Marathon in the Old Market Hall, there was a series of parallel lectures going on along with discussions for social innovators with inspiring speakers. Tatiana Svrčková from Slovak Telekom talked about how to get funding from companies. She mentioned that Slovak Telekom gives a chance to the projects which are focused on hearing-impaired people or education in general. Pavel Hrica from Pontis Foundation gave the participants the advice that “when fundraising, personal meetings represent 80% of the success. The remaining 20 comes from the fact that you are perfectly prepared for the project.

Pavol Minár from Istropolitana Ogilvy talked about storytelling and goodvertising. Minár pointed to a new trend in advertising when commercial brands take over the agenda of NGOs and are not trying to communicate their products first, but instead they begin dealing with social topics, showing that they care about values. He thus recommended that the NGOs take the same path.

Besides these topics, other things were discussed such as the game principle and its use by the non-profits, or how to make a presentation in front of the partners and donors. Slovensko.digital’s Ján Suchal talked about how they built the volby.digital portal, but also about the upcoming plans of the organization, which strives to create a platform for good IT ideas.

The inovatori.sk portal should help create connections

The day’s programme was concluded with Jakub Ptačin’s discussion on volunteering with Silvia Jeleníková, Dell’s head of HR, Vladimír Ledecký, the mayor of Spišský Hrhov, and with Lenka Surotchak, the director of Pontis Foundation. During the event, Pontis Foundation officially launched the inovatori.sk web portal as a follow-up to the Map of Social Innovators. “Our aim is to connect people who bring positive changes to society, and make them more visible. The portal offers both the innovators and the public a tool to find partners, supporters or just to get some inspiration. The new geographical map allows for searching according to the topic or the region of Slovakia. The mapping of social innovators further continues: we want to specify the individual focus groups of the innovators and add new names to the map,” said Monika Brošková.