Q&A with a nonprofit: Planning a virtual cultural celebration
In 2001, The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees held the first World Refugee Day. Since then, Bridge Refugee Services in Chattanooga and Knoxville, TN has been observing this day as a way to celebrate their refugee communities.
This year was a little different, but the team at Bridge Refugee Services didn’t miss the opportunity to continue their celebration, and held their first virtual World Refugee Day: Together at Home.
Hannah Mask, Volunteer & Community Outreach Manager at the Chattanooga location, shared with us the organization’s experiences planning a virtual event in just a month, capturing the spirit of the event in an entirely new setting, and their key takeaways from planning to execution.
Sarah: Can you give us a brief history of World Refugee Day?
Hannah: In 2001, the UNHCR declared June 20th to be World Refugee Day, an international event to honor the resilience and contributions of refugees who are forced to flee their homeland. Resettlement agencies, community organizations, refugee communities, and advocacy groups worldwide have made World Refugee Day an integral part of each year, and it truly brings the world together.
Tell us a little about the event and what it has looked like in the past.
For many years, World Refugee Day was an intimate, small gathering of Bridge staff, clients, and volunteers held at our office. In 2017, we partnered with The Mad Priest to host a larger, more public event at The Camp House in downtown Chattanooga. Over 300 people attended, and the subsequent years have grown into wonderful community gatherings with food, music, dancing, henna, and more. Each event shares the history and background of refugees in Chattanooga and provides a space for the Chattanooga community to learn, celebrate, and connect with one another.
Why did you decide to move forward with a virtual event versus postponing or cancelling this year?
Celebrating World Refugee Day is a staple of our organization and the biggest event of the year. When the pandemic began, we realized that a large event might not be possible for a long time; there were so many unknowns.
So we asked ourselves — what is the ultimate purpose of World Refugee Day? And we realized that WRD is so much more than just a physical gathering of people. WRD is about community, culture, and solidarity. And if anything, those are things that we need now more than ever, so we couldn’t miss WRD if there was still the option to host the event, albeit in a different fashion.
When you decided to plan a virtual event, what were your first steps?
Our first step was deciding how we wanted to implement the virtual event. Were we going to do a live stream? A series of pre-recorded videos on Facebook? A week of action? Once we decided on a live stream virtual event, the next step was to find an experienced partner to facilitate the technological side of things. We were referred to Helm Projects, a local production company with amazing expertise and experience. They guided us through the initial steps — and with just one month to plan we were able to pull it off!
What were your goals? Were those different from an in-person event?
The theme of World Refugee Day this year was “Together at Home,” and our vision was to bring all of the beloved elements of our usual WRD celebration into people’s homes, where they could participate in a virtual community. Basically, the goals were the same as every year — to celebrate, educate, and uplift a community to welcomes refugees through the sharing of stories, talents, contributions, and more. It just looked a little different in a virtual event.
What did you do to capture the spirit and the intention of the event?
We highlighted the many talents and culture of our clients. The idea was to still bring people together to eat, learn, sing, dance, laugh, and socialize. The interactive elements of the event helped us accomplish this, as did the storytelling aspects of the program.
Can you elaborate on the storytelling components of the event? How were you able to share stories?
We chose to highlight a few clients in the program as an opportunity for them to share their stories. This came in the form of pre-recorded videos filmed and produced by volunteers, who recorded clients talking about their experiences as refugees, the process of resettlement, and their lives here in Tennessee. These videos were spread throughout the virtual event, so that in between the fun activities, music, and dancing people were reminded of the deeply personal and human reason we join together on WRD.
Tell us a little about the interactive elements.
Since one of the goals of World Refugee Day is to actively engage within a community, we had to think creatively about ways to maintain that sense of togetherness. One thing we did was create “World Refugee Day Celebration Kits” that people could purchase ahead of time and that would correspond with pieces of the live program. These kits contained recipe cards based on the cooking demonstrations, supplies to do your own henna and follow along with a client video, language cards to follow along with the language lessons, etc. Many of the program elements invited interaction, and anyone could follow along with the drum lesson, the language demonstrations, or the children’s book reading.
Who were your essential partners? How did you connect with them? Were these existing partners or new ones?
The event was sponsored by Lusid Media and Regal Cinemas, and we partnered with local businesses to promote and expand the audience for the event. The Mad Priest and Jinan’s Kitchen (a local Iraqi catering company) offered takeout meals for purchase on World Refugee Day, Niedlovs donated 10% of their sales on June 20th to Bridge, and our faith community partners participated with their congregations.
For the virtual event we partnered with Helm Projects, Gary Poole from Big 95.3, the City of Chattanooga Mayor’s Office, Justin Ragsdale Photography, and Reed Schick Photography. Many of these were existing partners, but some were people and organizations we connected with as we put together the pieces of an online event.
How did you connect with new partners? What was your process?
Most of our new partners for this year’s event were connected to us by word-of-mouth referrals. Helm Projects was recommended by an acquaintance of mine — simply from a Facebook post on my personal page where I asked if anyone knew of a great local, virtual event production company. Our development director also submitted a World Refugee Day sponsorship packet to larger corporations like Regal Cinemas, and they reached out to us afterwards with their interest. Volunteer photographers and videographers were either referred to us by volunteers or through personal connections with those involved in Chattanooga’s creative community.
How did you promote the event?
We promoted the event through a number of outlets, including social media, local news, community partners, etc. We used paid Facebook ads to boost the event in our target population, and our Associate Director spoke on two radio shows — Scenic Roots and Big 95.3 — as well as Channel 3’s This n That segment. We also connected with our faith community partners, who shared the event with their congregations. And of course, we shared the event with our volunteers, donors, and the larger network of people that receive our newsletter and keep up with Bridge.
Did any type of promotion pay off more than another?
Social media and engagement from faith communities were probably the two most important types of promotion for us. Because the event streamed on Facebook, it was a natural place to create an event page and run ads. We made sure the audience selected for the ads was specific enough to reach people who would realistically be interested, while also bringing in new people who may not have known a lot about Bridge.
How did your audience change?
For one, this is the first year we held a combined World Refugee Day with our Knoxville office (and a virtual event is probably the only reason this was plausible). So our audience grew geographically to include more of East Tennessee. Many of the usual volunteers and community supporters still actively participated; however due to digital and language barriers less refugees were able to watch. An online event is definitely a huge adjustment from the normal party we’re all used to!
Did your demographics change at all? Did you see a younger audience because it was virtual?
Yes, absolutely. Our YouTube audience was 100% made up of people ages 25–34, while our top audience on Facebook was women over 65. I think having two platforms to stream helped us ensure a broader audience.
What platforms did you use and why?
We decided to use Facebook and YouTube as our streaming platforms. This was suggested to us by Helm Projects. Facebook’s live streaming is very accessible, and YouTube provided an option for those who don’t use social media. Both platforms also allow playback for anyone who missed the live event.
What was your fundraising approach for this event?
Fundraising for this event was primarily conducted through a text-to-donate campaign in which viewers could text the number on the screen and it would direct them to a donation page. It’s worth noting that our main goal for World Refugee Day is community celebration, and fundraising is just one aspect of the event. Should we choose to do a virtual event fully focused on fundraising in the future I imagine the approach might look a little different.
What challenges did you encounter?
Definitely the biggest challenge was the steep learning curve of facilitating a live, virtual event. When we met with Helm Projects, they enlightened us on aspects of the event we hadn’t even considered — for example, to stream an event with live footage we had to make sure we had commercial internet, not just residential or business, in order to make sure that the streaming quality stayed consistent throughout the event. Some pieces of the program were pre-recorded, so we tracked down clients individually to film their performances, which felt chaotic but in the end went very smoothly. Overall, the biggest challenge was adapting to the important details of a virtual event, and making sure we had a production company that could guide us through them!
What surprised you?
We were all blown away by the quality of the production and how smoothly everything went the day of the live stream. We heard from many people that they were surprised by how moving the program was — in many ways it felt just as intimate as being there in person, because the audience was able to see a different aspect of people’s lives. It truly felt like an authentic gathering of people from their homes, front porches, kitchens, etc.
What were your biggest takeaways?
We had two major takeaways. First, teamwork makes a huge difference! As with any event, it’s essential to surround yourself with people that take initiative and communicate clearly.
Second, a virtual event can be just as meaningful, educational, and community-oriented as an in-person event. The most important part of this process was letting go of any expectations that were contingent upon being together in person. Once we stepped outside of that box we were able to do things we couldn’t have imagined doing in-person — a cooking demonstration for example, or a TikTok fashion show. Virtual events open up more creative doors than we could have imagined.
Any tips for others who may be transforming an in-person event into a virtual one?
Invest in quality production. Partnering with Helm Projects was absolutely essential to this event’s success because their expertise, equipment, and awesome staff.
Start planning early! We found ourselves in a tough spot in April and May because so much was unknown when the pandemic began — thankfully we ended up pulling everything together in a remarkably small time window. But the more time you have, the better.
Would you consider doing virtual events in the future?
Absolutely! Virtual events are part of the future, without them World Refugee Day wouldn’t have been possible this year. We probably won’t hold World Refugee Day online again unless absolutely necessary, but we would definitely consider it for other events.
What might you do differently in the future?
We would definitely start preparing earlier (although so much was out of our control when the pandemic first began) and hopefully with more time we would be able to find ways to make the event more accessible to our clients and those who speak different languages.
Will this change how you approach in-person events in the future? If so, how?
Yes! There were quite a few aspects of World Refugee Day this year that we would like to carry forward to future in-person events. We’re definitely considering incorporating more pre-recorded storytelling videos in future events, as well as providing more digital learning resources. Holding a virtual event really opened our eyes to more possibilities for in person events as well.
Learn more about Bridge Refugee Services and the important work that they do.
To stay up to date with Make a Mark subscribe to the newsletter or send an email to hello@letsmakeamark.org.
