Project RISE is an educational nonprofit committed to helping disadvantaged youth in the greater Boston area improve their self-esteem and attain academic successes through after school and summer programs. Project RISE does incredible work for kids, but it lacked the profile and visibility necessary to raise the amount of funding needed to meet the growing needs of kids in this region.  They asked BHPi3 to change that.

Our task was complicated by the fact that RISE had essentially no budget for anything other than helping young people—donations were at an all-time low and every dollar was going to programs for kids.

We developed a highly innovative campaign to garner national recognition and major media visibility for RISE with little costs attached.  

We nominated RISE’s Executive Director and Founder Rob Dixon for the 1st Annual Major League Baseball/People Magazine “All Star Among Us Award.”  Thousands of nominations were received, however, based on the strength of the application packet we submitted, MLB and People selected RISE as a Boston-area finalist.

RISE was extremely pleased just to reach the Boston finals—however, we were just getting started.

The award program used online voting to narrow the field of ninety finalists down to thirty winners.  We faced serious competition; our main competitor had the public support of both The Goo Goo Dolls and Hilary Duff.  We launched a massive social media outreach, get-out-the-vote drive.   We obtained the vocal support of a number of Boston media outlets.  We recruited Senator Ted Kennedy, Boston Mayor Tom Menino, and countless other regional leaders to campaign for Rob.  

As a result, Project RISE was named the Boston area’s “All Star Among Us” winner and the Boston Red Sox representative to the 2009 Major League Baseball All Star Game.

We still weren’t done.

We then launched a follow on effort to get Rob and RISE named one of the national winners, which would be handpicked by all the living Presidents—George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barrack Obama.

Rob and RISE were selected by Former President George W. Bush to be a national honoree.  As a result Rob and RISE were honored in a special pregame video shown both at the All Star Game and on the national television broadcast. 

RISE was immediately put in the national spotlight.  The program received visits from Governor Deval Patrick, Mayor Menino and several corporate leaders all wanting to learn more about RISE and more importantly find ways to help.  Donations increased giving the program the resources and stability it needed to keep helping kids.  And, as a result of this exposure, RISE is about to announce a major new partnership that will allow the program to substantially grow and help more kids.

For more information on Project RISE please visit www.projectrise.com.