Instead of looking for pioneering solutions, we used a tool familiar to everybody - SMS. But thanks to that more people could have changed the empty tradition into a generous gesture.

Usually messaging campaigns end while a donor sends an sms. However, on 24 December our donors received a thank-you text with the information that their empty plate this year is actually not empty. And on various TV stations they could also see the people who benefited from their generosity.

In order to change the tradition, we needed real influencers. So, we asked for support priests instead of e.g. bloggers. And thanks to PR efforts, we also reached people who don’t attend churches.

Idea of the „New Old Tradition” reached more than 10 000 000 people and gained almost 150 000 Euro of free media. Among the people was… Pope Francis himself and he even decided to tweet about our Polish tradition.

During only 3 weeks we collected money for 17 500 meals for the poor only in Warsaw. Caritas has now a new way of fundraising for their food shelters in the years to come. And, instead of creating a single social campaign, we change the deep-rooted empty tradition. Moreover, by using the empty texts in order to fill the empty plates, we provoked a deeper reflection on the empty gestures.

All of that was achieved without any advertising costs.