At Discovery, we power people’s passions spotlighting diverse voices, stories and cultures. Passions are a privilege, elusive for many, due to systemic poverty, discrimination and injustice. We, as a company, wanted to combat these global issues, and do all we could with our platform and privilege to diminish inequity, secure basic needs for those without, and provide opportunities to marginalized and underserved communities.
At Discovery, Inc., we are committed to Reducing Inequality and Supporting Empowerment for underserved populations across the globe, fighting for justice and equality, providing access to opportunities to power progress for all.
Together, with our partner Save the Children, our goals are to:
Our RISE campaign is designed to be global in expanse, and yet empower our local markets and business units to fight inequality in their own community. Our initial goals are to: contribute in donations and awareness to ensure real impact, build employee engagement and identify business benefits. KPIs including social media and linear PSA impressions, donations from employees and consumers, government relations. opportunities are amongst how we are measuring goals.
The strategy behind RISE is to use our platforms and voice for good in our global market. As a global leader of real-life entertainment, and the Sports leader in Europe, Discovery wants to leverage its unparalleled global reach across more than 200 countries and territories in support of this effort. We’ve created promotional materials including PSAs, in-program messaging, and digital/social assets to reach our consumers and fellow employees. Our rollout in late January of 2020, began with participation from 18 countries where Discovery has offices, and included local and global fundraising, and awareness campaigns for underserved communities. Through our fundraising and donation wallet system with Pledgeling, we are able to use technology to collect and distribute these funds. Our international focus has been met with enthusiasm and encouragement from all sectors of the company. We are able to focus on countries with both priority business markets for Discovery and active local Save the Children chapters or partner programs; we’ve proved that doing good where you do business can make the most difference.
However, after just a few months, the world was met with the global COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps our greatest strength with our RISE campaign was our ability and flexibility to add COVID-19 relief as one of the main focuses and messaging points. Because COVID-19 touched every corner of the globe and numerous factors of people's everyday lives, our global offices rallied around the chance to provide their local Save the Children chapters with COVID-19 relief funds and programming. Our pledged direct donations allowed relief including food vouchers and study material in Finland, parental support and study materials in hard-hit Italy, hygiene and dignity kits in South Africa, and government aligned response measures in India.
The flexibility and adaptability of the RISE campaign also led to an amazing turn in May and June of 2020, when the world witnessed the murder of George Floyd, and the incredible surge of activism around racial and social justice. Around the world, Discovery employees and consumers wanted to participate in and give to causes that championed equality. We quickly sprang into action and used RISE's promise of equality and supporting marginalized communities to carry Discovery's pledge to combat social injustice. We identified organizations both in the US and our international hubs who are doing the on-the-ground-work of promoting racial and social justice. We built both employee and consumer facing webpages with information for donations and volunteering, which were met with great enthusiasm.
In the less than nine months since launch, RISE has created meaningful impact and change around the world.
We have expanded employee engagement through our Employee Wallet, our internal employee donation platform, and through RISE support and matching campaigns, have been able to generate over $400,000 to organizations fitting the missions of RISE. We have also strengthened employee and talent engagement through RISE themed volunteering activities on our annual Impact Day, hosting local virtual events and fundraisers, and have participation of international Discovery talent in global Save the Children initiatives like #SaveWithStories a social media campaign offering stories to provide fun and education to kids and parents stuck at home during the coronavirus outbreak.
We have also had incredible reach through our various platforms and channels. Our PSAs have reached almost 25 million people in over 20 countries, thanks to Discovery's impressive global distribution. Through traditional and digital press, RISE has gained 3 million impressions from articles published in Italy, Mexico, South Africa, and Japan. And through Discovery's social media platforms, RISE has collected over 3.6 million impressions and almost 85,000 engagements.
