Walking, talking and video taping inspirational messages of hope, the Healthline team raises money for the National MS Society and awareness for the You’ve Got This! campaign.
Taking part in Walk MS, San Francisco, Healthline employees not only volunteered for a worthy cause, they also spread the word about their “You’ve Got This” video campaign. In the process, they raised almost $4,000 for the National MS Society (the Society).
In a video showcasing the highlights of this year’s event, Park Allen, Healthline’s senior director of HR, explained the initiative.
“The ‘You’ve Got This’ campaign is really about empowering those who have been recently diagnosed to have the power to confront and to be aware that there is life with the condition,” Allen said.
See the Healthline Team in Action at Walk MS »
Healthline set up a booth at the event, complete with a Wall of Hope where people could share their personal inspirational messages, and a video camera to capture uplifting messages to the newly diagnosed from those who took part in the walk. For every video submitted, Healthline pledged $10 to the Society.
Walk MS fundraising events have been going on since 1988, and the organization says that, to date, it has raised more than $770 million nationwide for MS research.
“We thought the walk would be an amazing opportunity to support a cause that is close at heart for our organization by raising funds and awareness for a cure for MS,” said Healthline’s assistant marketing manager Maggie Danhakl. “We also used our booth to film ‘You’ve Got This’ videos, as this was a great opportunity to get new videos for the program, which would increase our overall donation to the National MS Society. We nearly doubled the number of videos on our site!”
Though the vignettes are only a few minutes in length, they are packed with inspirational messages and tips from those living with MS.
“You’ve Got This” actually has a double meaning, Danhakl points out.
“On the one hand, ‘You’ve Got This’ means you have MS. However, our campaign seeks to put a positive spin on the term by telling people that they are not alone, there are other folks going through the same thing,” she said.
With 20 Healthline employees participating in Walk MS (19 volunteering in San Francisco and one in New York City), they managed to raise nearly $4,000, including donations, $10 for every video filmed, and $50 for every employee who participated—funds that will go toward finding a cure.
“Multiple sclerosis is one of three conditions we’ve launched a ‘You’ve Got This’ program for,” said Danhakl. “Multiple sclerosis is a top condition for us, and while we do a great a job of providing online resources and programs for MS, we wanted to do more to help the community.”
Learn How Other MS Patients Tell Each Other ‘You’ve Got This’ »
The project, conceived by Tracy Rosecrans, vice president of marketing, is a way to simultaneously give hope and to raise money for the cause.
Rosecrans told Huffington Post, “The first ‘You’ve Got This’ program, focused on HIV, launched last year. It reached over one million people on Facebook alone, included several celebrity participants, and was featured in several leading HIV publications.”
The original campaign was such a success that they cloned the concept twice, first for bipolar disorder and then for MS.