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Social impact storytelling is the fastest way to reach peoples’ hearts, but when you’re empowering so many people who go on to achieve so much, finding the perfect story can be like finding a needle in a haystack. And on social media, where authenticity is the name of the game, making sure that bite-sized message truly reflects the communities you’re serving is critical to success.
Through their partnership with education nonprofit DonorsChoose, LOFT was able to do just that. By passing the mic to the teachers they supported, LOFT shared inspiring stories of inclusive classrooms year round — all while helping students get the resources they need to learn and grow. In addition to blowing past their fundraising goals, LOFT got some high praise from their community!
“This just made my day! Thank you so much for supporting teachers. I can’t wait to shop!”
The Challenge: Highlight LOFT’s dedication to inclusive classrooms through authentic storytelling
Uplifting and supporting America’s teacher community has always been at the heart of the LOFT brand. As part of their commitment to educators, LOFT hosts an annual back-to-school point of sale campaign, where donated funds directly support public school teachers through nonprofit crowdfunding platform DonorsChoose.
For the 2022–23 school year, LOFT wanted to tell rich stories on their primary social platform, Instagram, and give teachers the opportunity to share their own perspectives. LOFT wanted to go beyond the resources teachers requested to uncover how teachers are thinking about building inclusive classrooms.
In alignment with their overall messaging plans, LOFT selected four key moments to invest in storytelling: Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Earth Month, and Teacher Appreciation Week. To make sure each of those storytelling moments felt authentic and relevant, LOFT needed to find a group of engaged and diverse educators who would be excited to celebrate their classrooms with LOFT — even with their busy teacher schedules!
Our Approach: Inspire a diverse group of educators to partner with LOFT through targeted classroom support
After LOFT wrapped their 2022 point of sale campaign, they launched a series of match offers and funding drops, supporting public school teachers’ requests for classroom resources across the country. DonorsChoose gave teachers the chance to be featured in storytelling opportunities guaranteeing that any teacher LOFT reached out to would already be topped up with gratitude!
Teachers who raised their hands answered a brief survey about their classrooms and teaching, and we’re outfitted in LOFT clothing as a thank you for their time.
The results: Dozens of teacher stories and thousands of supported classrooms
Over the course of the year, LOFT successfully partnered with more than a dozen teachers of diverse backgrounds to hear how they bring learning to their students, and how they’re making their classrooms more inclusive. In addition to supporting the resources teachers need, LOFT showed the public powerful representation of our country’s diverse teacher workforce and the learning they help students achieve. Here are a few of our favorite features:
Other teachers were delighted to see LOFT celebrating education, inspiring responses like “Wow!! This is so sweet!! Thank you so much! I’m wearing my LOFT jeans today!” and “I am so grateful for this!! Thank you so incredibly much!! I am a die hard LOFT lover and I am so excited!”
During the back to school and holiday seasons, LOFT exceeded their fundraising goal, increasing their fundraising from the year prior by 5X, and raising nearly $1 million dollars for classrooms across the country. Over the course of the year, they helped fund 4,700 projects from 3,400 schools — the majority of which are historically underfunded and within 20 miles of LOFT stores.
We’re so grateful to our partners at LOFT for their ongoing support for America’s public school classrooms!
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