Making malnutrition history with Edesia Nutrition

Edesia Nutrition

Every 11 seconds a child dies from malnutrition. The increase in climate catastrophes, conflicts and economic disruptions has exacerbated malnutrition around the world. The good news is that Edesia Nutrition and its partners have a solution: Plumpy’Nut, a nutrient-packed food that Edesia produces for millions of children every year and that has a 92% success rate for curing severe acute malnutrition in an average of eight weeks. Thanks to a transformational gift from the Bezos family, Edesia is poised to double its production of this life-saving food. Just in time for the 2023 end-of-year giving season, Edesia brought on Spitfire to help the organization launch a fundraising campaign to make the most of this incredible opportunity and raise awareness about malnutrition. 

First, Spitfire developed a comprehensive media strategy to announce the historic gift. We drafted a robust media engagement strategy that included press outreach, media coaching for staff leadership and talking points for various audiences. The initial donation announcement garnered 21 news stories and mentions, including from the Boston Globe, Philanthropy News Digest and Providence Business News.

The gift included a $10 million matching challenge to encourage others to support efforts to end malnutrition. In Phase 2, Spitfire helped launch a multichannel marketing and fundraising strategy to promote the matching challenge during the six weeks from Giving Tuesday through the end of the year. The campaign aimed to emphasize Edesia’s commitment to ending malnutrition once and for all and the importance of prevention. 

Spitfire led the creative process of choosing a name — Make Malnutrition History — and brand identity to give the campaign a coherent look and feel. We also implemented a multichannel fundraising strategy with social media posts, digital ads, emails and a physical mailer that lead to a new webpage describing the matching campaign and encouraging donations. During the six-week campaign, organic reach on Instagram increased by 70%, and Facebook engagement was up 140% from previous months’ baselines. The multifaceted end-of-year push also helped build a solid foundation for the two-year matching campaign. Spitfire also supported Edesia in creating an influencer strategy, laying the groundwork for future engagement with celebrities and content creators that support their mission.