Monday, October 12, 2015

Successful use of social media tactics by Planned Parenthood for stop defunding by Susan G. Komen for the Cure Controversy





Planned Parenthood Federation of America is the nation’s largest non-profit organization that provides vital reproductive health care and sex education, as well as maternal and child health services. PPFA has its roots in Brooklyn, New York, where Margaret Sanger opened the first birth-control clinic in the US. She founded the American Birth Control League in 1916. She opened a new clinic in Manhattan, New York, which changed its name to "Planned Parenthood" (PP). It has since grown and consists of approximately 77 affiliates and over 800 clinics in the United States, with a total budget of about US$1 billion. PP provides services to over three million people in the country, and supports services for over one million people outside the United States.

PP is the largest provider of reproductive health services in the United States, with clinical interactions focused on breast and cervical cancer screening, HIV screening and counseling, `contraception, and abortion. The main source of funding of PP is from Medicaid, grants and contributions. One of the funding partner is Komen Breast Cancer Foundation (nonprofit organization) who was funding as grants to pay clinical breast examination and mammograms.

by Susan G. Komen (Komen), a nonprofit organization that seeks to “end breast cancer by funding groundbreaking research, community health & advocacy programs globally”. It was founded in 1982 by Nancy Brinker whose sister died after battling breast cancer. The year after, Brinker created the first Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, where the pink ribbon (logo) became famous between women that supported the organizations goals. The foundation also licensed products to raise funds that were in turn granted to health service providers, research centers, academic institutions and other organizations working to cure breast cancer. By 2012 Komen operated internationally, sponsoring races, research and programs in 50 countries. The same year the organization supported 124 affiliates.

Komen began providing funding to PP in 2005 because Komen thought PP was its sister in the nonprofit world with common cause. But Komen had been considering whether to end funding to PP in 2011 because Komen had been a target of anti-abortion groups. So controversy between them occurred at that time. We have discussed the case dividing the Social Media class in two groups.

During the course of discussion, it was found that both used social media tools like Facebook and Twitter and traditional media also. However, the proactive social media tactics of PP played crucial role in regaining the funds from Komen. The a comparative statement of Social media tactics played are as under:



Social Media Tactics
Played by Planned parenthood
Played by Komen
1: Alignment of Content Development with Social Media Metrics and Goals
Very effective and prompt
Not so effective
2: Content Strategy with a Big-Brand Mindset
Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, Google plus
Facebook
3: Concentration on Increasing Daily Updates
Promptly done
Not done
4: Engaged in Real Interactions with followers
Very actively
Not done
5: Introduced Contents with Infographics
Done in respect of actual beneficiary
No infographics
6: Network in All the Right Places
Yes, Media, Congress, Facebook and Twitter followers, beneficiaries and contributors
Not engaged except one news agency and few anti-abortion groups


7: Strengthened In-Person Events with Social Media
a.       Engaging—encouraging potential attendees to interact with you early on by crowdsourcing feedback.
b.      Intriguing—creating an event page on event listing sites (e.g., Facebook).
c.       Invigorate potential attendees with videos, press releases, Twitter list of attendees, etc.
d.      Integrating—picking a hashtag for the event to get people talking.
e.       Informing—asking attendees to vote on session suggestions via text messages.
f.       Propagating—streaming live video of events.



Yes

Yes


Yes

Yes

Yes
Yes


No

No


No

No

No
No
8: Regular interactions with Team Members to Keep up Momentum and Morale

Yes
No



Finally Komen reversed the decision to defund Planned Parenthood projects. In February 2012, Komen board member John D. Rafaelli gave an interview to The Huffington Post, were he apologized for failing in trying to keep abortion out of this. In a public statement replied in the press, Komen reaffirm its commitment to their mission of saving women’s life.

“By focusing on the broader message of women’s health, rather than abortion politics, PP was able to recast the issue of breast-cancer screening into the larger context of public health, saying public health is not meant to be a political issue”.


1 comment:

  1. This case is a very good example of the potential of use of social media. But this also raises a question : In today's world, Whether strategy to use social media to propagate an idea/message has gained importance over the merit of the idea/message itself ??

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