Cultivate Communities. Save. Succeed.
Bring research in-house and increase engagement with Salesforce Surveys,
Marketing Cloud and Social Studio
NON PROFIT | RESEARCH AND ENGAGEMENT | PLAN INTERNATIONAL
The Challenge
Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian organisation that advances children’s rights and equality for girls.
Plan International is developing a Youth Research Community to involve more young people in research that informs programming and advocacy work.
The challenges for Plan International were rooted in the fact that they relied on external market research agencies to conduct the surveys that are central to their work when highlighting the position of children around the world. This meant that they weren’t able to communicate directly with young people, involve them in the research process and share findings back with participants.
- Launch in-house surveying process that was easy to use for the research team
- Save on external agency costs and form an unlimited surveying process that does not rely on incremental funding
- Cultivate a Youth Research Community through surveys and landing pages so that data ownership and communications can be maintained within the organisation
- Increase youth research community reach through social media
- Capture anonymous information through digital surveys
- Respond to survey participants and Youth Research Community
- Share findings/reports with survey participants and Youth Research Community
- Conduct rapid research and increase online spaces in response to COVID-19
- Analyse data for annual reports
- Help develop young people’s research skills and increase opportunities for young people to participate in different stages of the research process
The Solution
Plan International is developing a Youth Research Community to involve more young people aged 15-24 in research that informs programming and advocacy work. Plan International adopted the Salesforce platform to build the Youth Research Community.
- Surveys
- Marketing Cloud
- Ad Studio
- Social Studio
Pracedo designed, delivered, and implemented an internal process that would free up funding, and empower Plan International to fuel Youth Research Community growth at a reduced cost. The pilot for this initiative focused on a survey around climate change. This survey:
- Explored climate change education and young people’s participation in formal climate policy processes.
- Included 18 questions aimed at girls, boys and young men and women, including gender non-conforming youth aged 15-24 years
- Was open to all Plan countries but mainly targeted countries that had agreed to share: Australia, Cambodia, Finland, UK, Brazil (included Facebook ads) and Zambia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Philippines, USA, Spain and Thailand
Starting With Salesforce Surveys and Service Cloud
Pracedo set up Plan International on Salesforce Surveys so that they had full control of creating and conducting surveys.
- The Climate Change survey was built in four languages (Spanish, French, Portuguese and English) so that it could connect with local communities.
- Survey set up included logic to skip inapplicable questions
- Contacts and responses were automatically stored in Service Cloud when surveys were completed
- Responses were anonymised by default, and participants had the option to opt-in to email communications
- A landing page was used for more detailed terms and conditions for survey participation – in line with Plan International’s Research Standards and Safeguarding procedures.
Engaging with Social Studio and Marketing Cloud
Social Studio and Marketing Cloud were set up so that Plan International could reach audiences based on keywords and engage with participants after completing the survey.
- Social Studio used in research project to understand young people’s views.
- Marketing Cloud journeys automated follow up email communications to opted-in participants
- A landing page in four languages was built using Cloud Pages for participants to join the youth research community
Training Staff For Success
Pracedo provided training to the Plan International research team so that they could maintain the solution and replicate it for other surveys across the organisation. Salesforce.org provided additional support to ensure that the team were set up for success.
- Trained staff on survey solution and how to contact community members
- Increased ownership of the platform
- Continued support with a partnership with Salesforce.org
Plan International Now Have A Community of 1,500+ Youth Members
The Results
Plan International now have full visibility of the data in their community and are less reliant on external market research agencies or additional funding to undertake new surveys. Insights are now easily within reach and Plan International have better engagement with their Youth Research Community members than ever before.
Direct engagement with the Youth Research Community
Communication And Collaboration
By running their own surveys, Plan International can now engage directly with youth from around the world through events or other communication. They have better insight and engagement with the Youth Research Community and can now share findings and reports with this community. Plan International is also able to run workshops and co-design recommendations for reports with their youth participants. This would not have been possible with surveys run through the market research companies.
Set-up For Continued Success
Plan international now own the engagement with their community, the surveying process, and the data that sits within it. This has empowered them to undertake 2 additional surveys in the space of 4 months. Read the latest report that Plan International have released as a result of the Salesforce implementation: “Snapshot Report: Girls’ Views of a Year of Disrupted Education“
Empowered Teams
Teams now have full control and ownership over the surveying process and community engagement. This has given them the power to create surveys when they need them, and produce relevant reporting on the communities they are cultivating. Global offices have also become aware of the power of the Salesforce platform and now want to utilise it for additional surveys.
Increased Efficency
Surveys are now connected to the Salesforce database, so there is no duplication of efforts across systems, additional surveys and youth engagement.
How You Can Help Plan International
Share the Youth Research Community sign up pages with your networks: