Half the Sky
Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn wanted their book to spark a movement.
Helping Nonprofits Leverage Half the Sky for their Cause
The Challenge: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn wanted their book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, to be much more than a bestseller. They wanted to leverage the attention the book received to garner more public support for the important work nonprofit groups are doing in the developing world to improve women’s lives.
Our Approach: Fenton brought together more than 50 nonprofits, most of whom are mentioned in the book to create an informal network to share ideas for publicity, fundraising, and awareness-building. We built an internal Web site for the nonprofits where they could share and exchange, and led a series of conference call briefings to encourage best practices and collaboration. Fenton also developed HalftheSkyMovement.org for the public to get information on each participating NGO and a “Spread the Word” section where visitors are encouraged to activate their own personal networks via social media. We launched the site with the publication of a special New York Times Sunday Magazine feature, “Saving the World’s Women,” devoted entirely to the issues raised in Half the Sky.
Progress, Accelerated: Since its launch, HalftheSkyMovement.org receives an average of 2,100 visitors per day. More than 81,000 of those visitors have used the site’s social media tools for spreading word-of-mouth. In November alone, roughly half of the participating nonprofits attracted 602,531 visitors to their respective Web sites. Groups that have never worked together before have since created joint initiatives including a panel on accelerating equality for women and girls at the Paley Center for Media, co-hosted by EngenderHealth, Ashoka and Equality Now.
