May 21, 2015 (Updated July 2, 2015)
We are very excited to hear that Affinity Credit Union won two national awards for Business For Good Social Venture Challenge.
The first is Community Economic Development Award at National Credit Union Awards Program. From the CCEDNet website:
For their dedication to economic equity, and generous sense of community, Affinity Credit Union, is the recipient of the 2015 National Credit Union Community Economic Development Award for their ‘Business-for-Good’ Social Venture Challenge.
The second is Achievement in Marketing Excellence Awards (Community/PR Event category) at Marketing Association for Credit Unions 2015 Strategic Marketing Conference & AIME Gala.
Affinity Credit Union, a 100% member owned cooperative is one of the largest credit unions in Canada with $4.7 billion in managed assets and offers a significant branch network in Saskatchewan. The Affinity Business-for-Good Social Venture Challenge was a crowdfunding competition between 3 social enterprises addressing social and environmental issues in Saskatoon & area. Affinity challenged Saskatoon to become a social investor and contribute to the finalist they believe has the most potential to build a better world. The campaign with the most funders would get $50,000 from Affinity Credit Union.
Affinity invited us to collaborate on this campaign. Unite and Affinity both being value based cooperatives, this was very aligned. Unite worked with Affinity’s community development and marketing team (web, social, traditional) in articulating key objectives (e.g. defining success, key metrics), target audience analysis, and a strategy to get there. Our teams worked collaboratively in developing key messaging, and defining timelines. Next phase was working with the 3 finalists in developing their crowdfunding strategies, stories, videos (production – see below), Indiegogo pages, perks, and key messaging, including clear call to action. This campaign was a community and movement building exercise for the organizations backing the social enterprise ideas. As was anticipated some of the initiatives exceeded the initial goal set by Affinity ($10,000) early, and Unite was involved in proactively advising them changes in strategy, and updates on the fly.
Overall the campaign was an astounding success in many ways. First, all organizations involved generated great momentum and engagement, reaching out to their base of supporters to vote by dollars. Second, Saskatoon overwhelmingly supporting social enterprises in the form of crowdfunding demonstrates we are fertile and ready for supporting and inspiring social and environmental good through business, in this digital age.
To read more about this experience please check out out older blog post.
About Unite
Unite helps positive messages spread and purpose driven organizations succeed through strategic marketing, creative ideas, and high-quality media.
Unite is one of the first marketing worker owned cooperatives in Western Canada. This model helps us deliver high quality marketing solutions by bringing together highly experienced professionals in marketing, strategy, social media, design, web development, video production, and other services on-demand.