Every year in Germany, more than 100,000 children and young people are reported missing. In the search for missing children, one factor that is crucial in finding a child is information from the general public – ideally as soon as possible after the child’s disappearance.

The idea: with the help of the internet, we assemble the biggest search party of all time and get the whole of Germany searching for missing children. The world’s first organized network-based search for missing children was launched under the core slogan of “Deutschland findet euch” (Germany will find you).The mission of this entirely new Facebook platform was only realistically achievable if we could get as many people as possible involved in searching. So with virtually no (advertising) budget, the key challenge was to establish a new Facebook platform alongside all the thousands of other platforms created every day and to make it prominent in the shortest possible time, thereby attracting as many people as possible to get involved. To generate the traffic needed particularly for the launch phase of “Deutschland findet euch”, a range of different initiatives, advertising materials and tools were deployed to draw attention to the Facebook platform. Each initiative communicated the name and URL of the Facebook search platform and sent out a universal message: “Join in the search!” Within the space of six months and using almost no (media) budget, “Deutschland findet euch” became the world’s largest network for tracing missing children. Today, the Facebook platform is supported by120,000 helpers while 80,000 people use the “Deutschland findet euch” app. In total, the campaign has generated over 120,000,000 media exposures.

But the best result of all: four missing childs has already been found thanks to “Deutschland findet euch”.

We developed an innovative search tool: the “Missing Add-on”. It’s the first browser add-on that blanks out banner-adds and replaces them with missing children notices instead.

With over 10,000 downloads of the Add-on, we were able to make the search for missing children much faster and more effective. 130,000 Facebook fans are with us.This was only one of several measures, which helped to establish Deutschland Findet Euch as the world’s largest network for tracing missing children. But the best result is, that to date 4 children have been already found.