H&M Foundation's mission is to be a catalyst for positive change. By working towards reaching the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goal for Gender Equality (SDG #5), the H&M Foundation is breaking away from the norm of the non-profit category – avoiding fly-in-the-eye-communication in favor of positive storytelling.

With the Foundation 500-campaign, H&M Foundation challenged business stereotypes to show a different kind of CEO – proving the positive impact of their global program. By portraying female entrepreneurs from developing countries in the same style and manner usually reserved for male business leaders. The aim is to increase awareness and change attitudes that are stopping women from reaching their full potential.

Brief:

Together with humanitarian organisation CARE, the H&M Foundation invests in women’s economic empowerment by equipping women in emerging markets with the tools they need to start, develop and grow their businesses. By the end of 2016, H&M Foundation's global program had reached over 100 000 women.

The agency's brief was to communicate the results of the program to create awareness and global reach through earned media.

Objectives:

-Global reach and awareness in business media and general news.

-KPI: 40.000 visits to campaign page

-Challenge the stereotype and non-profit category.

Pre-launch:

To create the Foundation 500-campaign we partnered with humanitarian organisation CARE to collect data of their and H&M Foundation's global program for equality. From the material, we choose the 500 most developed entrepreneurs and companies to be featured on our all-female-alternative-Fortune500-list.

Together with photographer Malin Fezehai, we traveled to Africa, the Middle East and Asia to take 50 portraits of female entrepreneurs in the same style usually reserved for male business leaders: looking powerful, strong, confident. CARE's field team interviewed an additional 450 entrepreneurs across 11 countries.

Launch:

Embargo pitch to business media and news agencies.

Exclusive for Reuters and Metro.

Assets:

Press release

500 stories on foundation500.com

50 press images

B-roll video footage and Behind-The-Scenes-material

Facebook/Instagram video/posts.

Post-launch:

Keynote-invitations and articles about Foundation 500 continue to spread the campaign in media across the world, challenging the stereotype of a business leader and creating positive change, article by article.