Title	WORK TO BELONG – A CERTIFIED PROGRAM FOR REDUCING LONELINESS AT WORK
Brand	HELSINKIMISSIO
Product/Service	WORK TO BELONG PROGRAM
Category	D01. Strategic Transformation
Entrant	TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Idea Creation	TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND

Name	Company	Position
Martta Kallio	TBWA\Helsinki	Copywriter
Otto Kilpiö	TBWA\Helsinki	Copywriter
Anette Michelsson	TBWA\Helsinki	Account Manager
Ville Ohtonen	TBWA\Helsinki	Creative Director
Mikko Pietilä	TBWA\Helsinki	Executive Creative Director
Jyrki Poutanen	TBWA\Helsinki	Chief Creative Officer
Erno Reinikainen	TBWA\Helsinki	Executive Creative Director
Mira Sallanko	TBWA\Helsinki	Account Manager
Joona Mantere	TBWA\Helsinki	Creative
Joonas Hokka	TBWA\Helsinki	Creative Strategist
Timo Klemola	TBWA\Helsinki	Designer
Viggo Holländer	TBWA\Helsinki	Digital Designer
Saana Simander	TBWA\Helsinki	PR Strategist
Sara Pitzén	TBWA\Helsinki	PR and comms consultant
Tuula Colliander	HelsinkiMissio	Executive Director
Hanna Koskenkangas	HelsinkiMissio	Concept Manager
Kristiina Backberg	HelsinkiMissio	Communications Manager
Niina Frösén	HelsinkiMissio	Fundraising Manager

Why is this work relevant for Creative Strategy?

As a charity organisation HelsinkiMissio was amidst two challenges caused by the pandemic. First, their funding was at risk as companies cut their charity budgets, and second, there were more lonely people who needed help. We needed to solve both of these challenges at once. Since there was no additional budgeting for traditional charity marketing, we had to develop a new operating model to secure funding. With this strategic transformation towards a service organisation we exceeded the clients’ objectives and were able to position them beyond traditional charitable NGOs and set a new standard for the industry.

Background

The pandemic cast a shadow on business-to-business charity work, when the uncertainty hindered the budgeting for non-work relevant activities, like donations. At the same time the amount of experienced loneliness was rising to a new high: 33% of Finnish people were experiencing it while working more from home. Loneliness can be as damaging to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. This has a direct impact on Finns’ business performance. HelsinkiMissio is the oldest charitable NGO in reducing isolation and loneliness in Finland. Their new brand strategy highlights their active role in society. Instead of helping already lonely people, they wanted to fix their cause proactively. Our brief was to ideate new streams of revenue, that were not as vulnerable to economic shocks and could stabilise their funding. Simply put, our objective was to raise more funds from businesses to support the cause, to prevent loneliness in these challenging circumstances.

Interpretation (30% of vote)

HelsinkiMissio’s funding was at risk, since corporate donations are a major share of their annual budgets. We had to change the perspective from asking businesses to do charitable work and donations to encouraging businesses to invest in their staff wellbeing. This switch went hand in hand with their updated brand strategy, in which they positioned themselves as more empowering rather than begging. To decrease their vulnerability, we needed to propose something like a new business model, in which instead of appealing for annual donations once a year, they would get a steady income while proactively battling loneliness. We wanted to target large local businesses with lots of workforce, where the amount of experienced loneliness is bigger, as well as budgets for HR. The desired outcome was to create something tangible, like a service or a product, that would benefit HelsinkiMissio and its partners, and the results could be easily monitored.

Insight / Breakthrough Thinking (30% of vote)

HelsinkiMissio had a simple business problem, while the society had an even larger problem with rising loneliness – the NGO would have to solve both. Our approach was based on the well covered insight that loneliness is an organisational problem, not individuals’ problem. Businesses have a crucial role to play in how we as humans feel most of the time, since most of the time awake is spent working. Utilizing Porter’s “Creating Shared Value” concept, we acknowledged that similarly to environmental actions, organisational loneliness could be tackled with a business model. HelsinkiMissio had been educating companies about loneliness being a health hazard. What they were lacking was the tools to market this service as a sellable product and scale it up. That led us to bundle their old operations as a new service. This way we would get our hands on different budgets that are not as easily cut.

Creative Idea (20% of vote)

The solution was to create a sellable service, a program called Work to Belong, that works as a commitment to reduce loneliness in workplaces. The four part program consists of staff survey, a bespoke plan, implementation and yearly audits. After committing to the program and using the professional tools to reduce loneliness, the company gets a certificate similar to the Great Place to Work™ or Green Office. The program has been developed so that it is scalable to any organisation type, and it is priced with annual fees based on the organisation size. The Work to Belong certificate implies to own personnel and outside the company that the company cares about their employees. It is both the employee’s and company’s advantage if loneliness is reduced together. The Work to Belong program shows companies how tackling loneliness in workplaces effects positively on employee wellbeing, culture, work efficiency and eventually in profit.

Outcome / Results (20% of vote)

In 2021, 28 major organizations and businesses have contacted HelsinkiMissio to help their employees in battling loneliness in workplaces. Within the first few months, over three times the first year’s objective in revenue was accumulated and over 16 000 employees have been helped. HelsinkiMissio is now a service organisation that helps their partners in a structured manner and fixes loneliness proactively. As HR’s welfare budgets are not as easily cut due to economic shifts or crises, they are no longer dependent on the Christmas campaigns for corporate donations. The new service ensures HelsinkiMissio a steady income for years to come. The strategy shift sets a benchmark for all NGOs. Since the funding rate is so high and effective, HelsinkiMissio started to develop an affiliate program with funding from Work To Belong. School to Belong is a certified program for reducing loneliness in elementary schools, and it is already being piloted.