When it comes to activating volunteers, gamification is one of the best tools in the book. That’s what the ALS Association discovered with its ice bucket challenge, which raised more than $100 million for ALS, courtesy of three million plus people. Now the champions of Hunger Action Month are following suit.
September is Hunger Action Month, a national grassroots movement to fight hunger in every community across America. Led by Feeding America and member food banks, Hunger Action Month encourages every American to advocate and raise awareness of the 1 in 6 Americans struggling with hunger, make donations or volunteer.
More than 46.5 million Americans rely on Feeding America food banks each year, so what better way to raise awareness for hunger than through spoons? #Spoontember invites supporters to share a “spoon selfie” - that would be a spoon balanced upon one’s nose - and then spread the image and hunger-related statistics through social media.
Gamification can clearly work on a gigantic scale, so I’m happy to see the team behind Hunger Action Month getting its own game on by taking to spoons instead of buckets.
To support #Spoontember, Feeding America granted five traveling selfie stations, or photo booths, to five food banks to use within their community-wide volunteer events throughout September. More than 1500 viral spoon selfies have ensued, keeping the campaign and its message fresh on people’s minds - and hopefully their wallets, too.
The No Kid Hungry campaign is supporting Hunger Action Month with “End it with Orange,” a campaign in partnership with thousands of restaurants to end childhood hunger, one meal at a time.
No Kid Hungry is urging everyone to join the pledge to end childhood hunger. Throughout September, No Kid Hungry partners are giving back with discounts and promotions, which you can find by following #NoKidHungry, or checking out some of the ongoing promotions here. You can also do good by dining out; find a restaurant here that allows you to support No Kid Hungry this September.
It’s not only restaurants that are supporting Hunger Action Month. Other corporate involvement includes Cheeky, which has produced Hunger Action Month-inspired orange plastic cutlery for Target. For each Cheeky item purchased, Cheeky will donate the monetary equivalent of approximately one meal to Feeding America. Cheeky's Chief Culinary Ambassador Mario Batali helped kick off the campaign, challenging his friends to take a "spoon selfie." For every Twitter and Instagram post tagged with #Spoontember, @FeedingAmerica, and @Cheeky_Home, Cheeky will donate a meal* through Feeding America.
Cheeky also provided 100,000 spoons to online influencers and 180 Feeding America member food banks, to use for spoon selfies and local activations.
Meanwhile, The Great American MilkDrive is donating a gallon of milk to Feeding America for every share of the “Strength in Numbers” Facebook and Twitter posts on its social media pages during Hunger Action Month. As the campaign points out, milk is one of the most-requested, yet least-donated items at Feeding America food banks. On average, food bank clients receive the equivalent of less than 1 gallon per person per year. That’s because while Americans are generous with canned and dry goods, many don’t think to donate milk because it’s perishable.
In partnership with Feeding America, The Great American Milk Drive turns donations into gallons of milk for families in your local community. To date, nearly 400,000 gallons — more than 6 million servings— of milk have been delivered to families across the country through The Great American Milk Drive.
And TLC launched “Give A Little TLC” with a new PSA empowering viewers to make a difference in the lives of people in need. The initiative kicked off in support of Feeding America on Hunger Action Day with the release of its new Give A Little TLC PSA, social support and spoon selfies from its show talent, turning its properties orange including its TV logo and announcing that it will provide 1 million meals to Feeding America by the end of 2015.
Joining the fight to end hunger in America is about as worthy an effort that anyone could imagine. But as serious as the stakes are, Hunger Action Month and its partners are wisely making this movement fun and viral, finding easy ways to involve allies and the general public. With any volunteer and giving effort, creating highly social, accessible, low barrier to entry opportunities that have a sense of humor about them can go a long way towards getting people engaged and keeping them hooked.
If you want to get involved in #Spoontember to support Hunger Action Month, here’s all you have to do:
- Grab a spoon
- Do your best to balance it on your nose
- Take a picture of your ‘spoon selfie’
- Post the image to your social media accounts to raise awareness and tag a friend to do the same. Here is some sample copy to get your started:
- I’m taking a spoon selfie to raise awareness for the 1 in 6 Americans struggling with hunger. I challenge (name) to join me! #Spoontember #HungerActionMonth @FeedingAmerica
- Join me and take a #Spoontember selfie to raise awareness for the 1 in 6 facing hunger! #HungerActionMonth @FeedingAmerica
- Use #Spoontember and #HungerActionMonth to help fuel the movement and don't forget to tag @FeedingAmerica.