An increase in website traffic of 1700 percent and over $450,000 in donations – those are not numbers seen every day. As a die-hard The Daily Show fan and from my own experience with non-profits and digital strategy, I know that this achievement is no small feat, even when you have a “sexy” cause driving the campaign; but, the Trust for National Mall? I was excited to catch this event this afternoon at Internet Week headquarters and find out from Greg Kihlstrom of Carousel30 Interactive, Caroline Cunningham, President of Trust for the National Mall and Michael Sabat, from Mobile Commons how they designed and implemented their successful campaign.

Digging a little deeper we find that it made perfect sense for the most trusted newsman in America to choose the National Mall as the location to host this national call for sanity. The East end of the National Mall was chosen precisely because it is not associated with any other political or social philosophies or agendas. It is simply “America’s backyard”, a place for Americans to come together and celebrate who we are as a nation.  This was precisely the message behind the rally itself – a rally for the “Busy Majority” and a call for civility in our discourse. The literal call from Comedy Central notifying the Trust that they had been chosen as the official charity for the event was fielded by an intern and came 10 days prior to the announcement. They had 30 days before the event.

The Trust for the National Mall is a three year old small organization dedicated to restoring and improving the National Mall. When they got the call, they immediately contacted Carousel30, the digital agency they have worked with since their inception, and got started on a plan. In 10 days, they had to set up a communications plan and create an infrastructure that would handle the increase in the public’s awareness of the organization, including the spike in traffic and donations. They created a landing page for the event, they contacted Mobile Commons to ensure mobile donations were enabled, they build a donations widget. They set up systems to accurately attribute the source of the growth and donations and measure awareness of the event.  It was a fully integrated plan typically seen in larger organizations, and it was completed in a matter of a few days.

Michael Sabat from Mobile Commons shared that “it was easy to get behind the cause and make it happen quickly”. The urgency behind the request coupled with the high awareness of the public, allowed processes that typically take months to take priorities and get done quickly. Caroline Cunningham from the Trust explained how being able to count how many people were coming to their site drove their entire PR strategy. Acknowledging that she is no social media expert, she appreciated how the digital strategy and traditional media were integrated and complemented each other to achieve their goals.

Saturday, October 30th came along and they were as prepared as they could be. They were ready for the likely crash on the website, which inevitably happened. A quarter of a million people showed up that day on the National Mall. What they did not anticipate, were the ongoing issues with cell phone reception throughout the day, despite their extensive plans to allow for and promote “Text to Donate” during the event. In hindsight, making the texting to donate information available in as many outlets as possible, from grass seed cards they handed out to including it all over their digital properties proved to instrumental to the high number of donations received regardless.

Ultimately, they raised $450,000 and saw a spike in online donations of 130,000 percent. Their Facebook fan base grew by 92 percent. Today, most notable has been the impact beyond the event. The Trust has created a community of supporters and donors that has led to them doubling their end-of-year fundraising efforts.  They have set up systems to have a dialogue with these individuals and build on that moment that captured people’s attention for the future. Caroline’s lesson learned was “Be prepared and build infrastructure for 4 years down the road, so that when the opportunity comes, you can just flip a switch and get it running.”

The Trust for the National Mall is a case study that clearly demonstrates what it is possible to achieve under the craziest of circumstances. Large and small organizations need to build the infrastructure to support all the digital tools available so that they can engage their audiences and create forums to create awareness for their brands or their cause. The time to think big and plan for the future is now, when you have a little longer than 30 days. Because when your call comes, you’ll want to be ready.