In more than 18 years in business, we’ve worked with our fair share of non-profits here at Newman Grace. For more 10 years, we’ve had the privilege of working Shane’s Inspiration. They are one of our longest and most beloved non-profit clients.

Shane’s Inspiration is a non-profit organization that, simply put, designs and builds playgrounds to give children with and without disabilities the opportunity to play side by side with each other. Through “inclusive play” they learn from each other, thus breaking down barriers and increasing awareness and acceptance. Since the grand opening of their first playground in 1998, they have gone on to build 56 playgrounds and expanded from the U.S. to Mexico, Canada, Ecuador, Russia and Israel! Their education program, Together We Are Able, has been implemented in more than 150 schools.

For the last year and a half, we’ve been on a big social media push. Shane’s Inspiration relies so much on the community that it felt like an avenue we should really be focusing efforts on. Just this month, Shane’s entered a submission called “Together We Play L.A.!” for the LA 2050 (in partnership with the Goldhirsch Foundation & Good Maker) Grants Challenge to win $100,000. There were 2 weeks of voting for the winners, 1 of which would be chosen by popular vote…so we had our marching orders! We set out on a solid 4 week promotional campaign to get their submission seen, shared and eventually voted on! We created and shared artwork daily to show how Shane’s meets the LA2050 Metrics. One of our largest pushes was through Twitter, which has been shown to work wonders for Shane’s when used right! We got many celebrity supporters sharing our submission and encouraging their fans to vote including Alex Band of The Calling (seen below), David & Leigh Koechner (actors and comedians), Brian Dietzen (of TV’s NCIS), Emily Wickersham (also of TV’s NCIS), and Michael Weatherly (yet another from NCIS), helped get the word out and get votes by sharing our artwork on social media!

In addition to our push for Shane’s Inspiration, Together We Play L.A.! votes, we upped the social media awareness of Shane’s 17th Annual Walk & Roll. While we posted about the Walk & Roll last year, we really increased our focus for on social media , particularly Twitter and Facebook, for increasing attendance and knowledge of the event. During the event and in the days after, we continued to post event photos, videos and thank you’s to supporters on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus to keep the momentum of the event going. Luckily, our hard work paid off as donations from the 2014 Walk & Roll have already surpassed last years event!

For more information about Shane’s Inspiration visit www.shanesinspiration.org. Or to keep up with our social media work for Shane’s, visit Facebook.com/ShanesInspiration or follow them on twitter at @ShanesPlay.