1. LIGHT IT UP BLUE All-Staff Call February 5, 2013
Please press *6 to mute your phone

2. TODAY’S AGENDA Review What Light It Up Blue Is A Year In Review
LIUB Expansion Strategy & Strategic Framework
Bringing The Campaign To Life
Discussion & Next Steps

3. In December of 2007, the United Nations General Assembly, by unanimous consent, passed the resolution designating April 2 as World Autism Awareness Day in perpetuity starting in The Resolution encouraged UN Member States to take measures to raise awareness about autism throughout society, to promote early diagnosis and early behavioral intervention and acknowledges the high rate of autism in all regions of the world.
The UN continues to support World Autism Awareness Day and holds awareness event jointly sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh, the United States Mission to the UN, the Permanent Mission of the State of Qatar (KAH-tur), and Autism Speaks.
In 2010, Autism Speaks, as the world's largest autism science and advocacy organization, launched Light It Up Blue – as unique global initiative to help raise awareness and shine a bright light on autism as a growing public health crisis in support of the third annual UN Sanctioned World Autism Awareness Day on April 2 and to promote Autism Awareness Month. Iconic landmarks around the globe – including our own U.S. Beacon of HOPE – the Empire State Building as well as airports, bridges, museums, concert halls, restaurants, and retail stores, are among more than went Blue.

4. 2013 Light It Up Blue Campaign
APRIL 2012 Marked the BIGGEST World autism awareness month to-date
3,000 iconic buildings and landmarks
In over 600 cities
10 U.S. State Capitals and 235 College campuses
IN more than 45 countries worldwide
More than $400k raised at 6 Light It Up Blue Galas across the country
More than 138k unique online visitors, and approx. 29k pledges to “Go Blue” online donations raising over $92k
More than $6.4M raised through 10 CORPORATE Promotions
Prioritize Bus
2013 Light It Up Blue Campaign
DONATE
EDUCATE
ACTIVATE
BIGGER, BETTER, BLUER…
ILLUMINATE – Increase to 5000 buildings, 88 Countries DONATE – Raise $10 million dollars EDUCATE – Early Access To Care, Cost of Autism Study, Increased Media, Local Spokespeople ACTIVATE – National Strategy / Plan (188,000 signatures)
As you have heard Liz Feld state on numerous staff calls, and meetings with the field leadership and OC members, in order to move our mission forward and ensure that we can implement our strategic plan, we need to make sure that everything we do consist of three basic functions.
DONATE EDUCATE ACTIVATE
In 2013, our OBJECTIVE is to Harness Light It Up Blue awareness activities to raise more funds for Autism Speaks and push a national strategy for our elected officials, and hopefully create an Office on Autism under the Obama administration.
A successful LIUB campaign will:
Maintain momentum throughout the entire month of April
Drive consumers to make a direct connection to Autism Speaks as the leader and unifier within the Autism issue space
(ILLUMINATE) Increase number of participating cities, buildings and countries
Engage consumers and corporate sponsors in the fundraising process
And activate our mission into LIUB activities: Educate our constituents on our awareness efforts, showcase and highlight our achievements we’ve made through our science department, provide the valuable resources that our family services team has been able to deliver, and activate a plan to create a national strategy here in the US under this administration.

5. GROWING OUR AUDIENCES OVER TIME
General Public
General public
Friends & Family of the Autism Community
Friends & Family
Current supporters and families
Current Supporters & Families
of the autism community
From 2012 to we did an amazing job at reaching out to our current supporters & families to support our efforts… The way we have managed in the past didn’t allow for us to get this full reach… but pushing Light It Up Blue beyond what is has been will allow us to penetrate a broader audience, and raise the awareness and funds needed to accomplish our mission.

6. Where we’VE BEEN Twitter Facebook Blog Celebrities Buildings
Autism Speaks U
Celebrities
Buildings
LIUB Pledge
Many successful fundraising and awareness activations, but they have been all over the place and not promoted to the fullest, and many of our staff and volunteer were unaware of the ways they could be engaged. And in the past, we haven't had constant messaging around LIUB
Cause Marketing
Walks
Merchandise
Mobile

7. Looking toward the future
Focus consumer activations
Streamline sponsorship activities
Simplify messaging
Drive direct credit to Autism Speaks
IMPACT P I M T
Our new plan is to steer support and activations in a cohesive, strategic direction to achieve greater success in 2013 and beyond We are approaching Light It Up Blue with a new strategic framework. We will provide a constant message, and ensure that everything we do with this campaign… and every campaign moving forward, pushes us to continue to educate the community, ask for financial support, and push a national plan.
We are going to :
Focus consumer activations
Streamline sponsorship activities
Simplify messaging
Drive direct credit to Autism Speaks A C

8. STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK LIGHT IT UP BLUE
Create a month long organizational campaign that engages all-staff and volunteers, and reached beyond our community scope
SWW states time and time again… we’re all fundraisers and we’re all advocates.
We have many staff members that have supported Light It Up Blue in the past, and we know with an ‘all-hand’s on deck’ approach, we can expand our awareness efforts not only around North America, but around the globe. We can educate the broader community about our mission, and raise the critical funds needed to move our mission forward.
For this campaign we’re going to Create a month long organizational campaign that engages all-staff and volunteers, and reached beyond our community scope
Light It Up Blue is the main campaign… Launching and supporting World Autism Awareness Day. But everything we do around this time frame needs to be branded and mentions as Autism Speaks Light It Up Blue.
So, what does a month long campaign look like?
ILLUMINATE Light It Up Blue World Autism Awareness Day EDUCATE our community by shining a light on autism
DONATE
Consumer and corporate fundraising
ADVOCATE
ACTIVATE the country to lend their voices to our issue

9. WHAT DOES A MONTH LONG CAMPAIGN MEAN?
APRIL 2
LEADING UP TO AND THROUGHOUT APRIL
ILLUMINATE (the tool in which we EDUCATE and bring greater awareness to ASD)
DONATE
Consumer and corporate fundraising
ADVOCATE
ACTIVATE the country to lend their voices to our issue
5000 Global Buildings Shine a Light on Autism
Key messaging to educate the broader community about ASD and Autism Speaks achievements
Building Family Awareness days
Build national awareness through: PR
Marketing
Research
Existing and new spokespeople
Support Home Depots cause marketing campaign
Promote TRU / BRU
Hold in-store promotion
Online Pledge
Text 2 Donate
Community Fundraisers
Autism Speaks Events: National and Local
Sevenly Campaign
Merchandise
Coinstar
Go online and Speak Up
Sign our petition
Post a message
Post a video
Reach out to your congressman
Leverage existing
spokespeople
Again, we will use April 2nd, World Autism Awareness Day, as a platform to announce month long initiative to rally consumers and companies to rally behind Autism Speaks Global efforts.
Illuminate – using this a s the tool to educate the broader community. (reviewed all items under illuminate) Building Family Awareness days – We have several national partnership that we’re announcing, such as our Zoo’s Go Blue campaign where 57 zoos will be going blue and using the end of April to create awareness days. This partnership will help us reach 1.2 million individuals in the weeks leading up to April. We have relationships budding with the Little League world series which will push our efforts to over 30,000 children in the US in their challenger series, as well as their 7200 leagues across the globe. We are growing our relationship with the NBA, as well as almost ready to announce another national promotion (the ink isn’t dry on the contract yet – by Friday), that will expose our April efforts to tens of millions of individuals – again, a majority in the ‘broader community’ expanding our scope.
Reviewed list of ways people can donate
Advocate:There is NO WHITE HORSE in DC. And there is no funds available to support our mission. We are the loudest and the strongest autism organization and we need to harness our energy and start punching our weight.
We know we have the power socially, and locally, to drive our advocacy efforts and there is no better time that NOW and to use LIUB to launch our year of action campaign. Through our social listening exercises we did after LIUB last year, we know that Autism Speaks is the most talked about organization in April and that autism is the most discussed health related topic of the month. We can drive more than awareness – we must raise more funds using this campaign, and we will move our advocacy efforts as well.

10. LIGHT IT UP BLUE BRINGING THE CAMPAIGN TO LIFE
Our next steps…

11. ILLUMINATE GOALS: Increase buildings from 3000 to 5000
State Capitals from 10 to 20
Countries from 50 to 88
Unique online visitors from 138K to 200k
EDUCATE:
Light It Up Blue Brand
Increased Media presence
Local Spokespeople
Early Access To Care
Cost of Autism Study
How our national efforts benefit our local community
Increase “general community” exposure through a series of autism awareness activities
GOALS:
Increase buildings from 3000 to 5000
State Capitals from 10 to 20
Countries from 50 to 88
Unique online visitors from 138K to 200k
EDUCATE:
Light It Up Blue Brand
Increased Media presence
Local Spokespeople to have a consistent message and when we talk about LIUB its more than just buildings… we will use this to educate our audience, ask for funds (We are a non-profit organization… we should NEVER be afraid to make an ask… it’s the only way to move our organization forward!). And we will ask for them to lend their voice to our cause.
Early Access To Care
Cost of Autism Study and the financial benefits of early DX and early intervention.
Transitional Services
How our national efforts benefit our local community
Increase “general community” exposure through a series of autism awareness activities

12. ILLUMINATE LightItUpBLue.org
JOIN US
First step for all staff – go to our website.
We just launched it and you should become familiar with it. Please… while we have checked it out from every angle, if there is something that isn’t working on the site, let us know so we can fix it.
Second step: Pledge to light up your own home, our your spouses workplace blue. EVERYBODY should be participating in this event and this is one of the easiest campaigns to be apart of.

13. ILLUMINATE
New tools and resources for individuals and families buildings and landmarks Hotels Retail locations Schools (k-12) as well as Universities Cultural institutions restaurants media
As well as information on how to “illuminate and educate” airports, bridges, sports areas, concert halls, research centers, websites, etc. Following this webinar, there will be a series of calls for our staff as well as volunteers that will be set up that will go over how to engage our community on a broader, how to empower over volunteers and challenge them to secure 88 buildings in each of our Walk markets.
Staff that have smart phones, we encourage you to download our mobile application and encourage all of your contacts to do so as well.

14. DONATE Create a page on LightItUpBLue.org See cute kid here:
After you join, create a page. Use this tool to educate your friends and family and your social network on the many things we’re doing as an organization. Be proud to work here… highlight our achievements!
Again, all staff members , regardless of title or departments are ambassadors, advocates, and fundraisers for this organization.
Setting up a page will take you less than two minutes. I created mine on behalf of my daughter, Princess Kensington Grace, whose best friend Daniel is on the spectrum. It talks about her experiences with him and how she’s raising money to support not only Daniel but the 1:88 children that will be diagnosed this year. Within hours of setting this page up, I’m already at 24 % of my fundraising goal and that was less than 24 hours ago. At her school, they are “Lighting It Up Blue” and doing an awareness campaign and a fundraising campaign. It took me 5 minutes to go into the owners office, share with her what LIUB is all about and ask them to get involved.
See cute kid here:

15. DONATE
Every donation makes a difference in the lives of your neighbors.
Visit and select “DONATE” on the top toolbar to make a one-time donation.  
Text AUTISM to to donate $10 to Autism Speaks.
Through those social listening exercises I mentioned, we learned that in order to appeal to those outside of the Autism Community we had to make it personal and local.
Our key messaging to help reach the broader community will be: Every donation makes a difference in the lives of your neighbors.
We will be driving people to the website for general donations and encouraging people to create their own pages, and the national campaigns that I mentioned will be pushing Text To Donate messaging.
Support Home Depots cause marketing campaign
Promote TRU / BRU
Hold in-store promotion

16. ADVOCATE
We call on President Obama and all our elected leaders to develop and implement a comprehensive national plan to address autism.
We will Activate the general public our more than 1 million Facebook fans and nearly 100,000 Twitter followers to lend their voices in support of autism Language with our contacts at HHS as well as our contacts within the Obama Administration… and our ask will be to call upon President Obama and all our elected leaders to develop and implement a comprehensive national plan to address Autism. Goal if 188,000 petitions
We are finalizing the vehicle in which people will be signing the petition this week and will be updating our LIUB website to drive people to that petiton.

17. Here is to a successful launch of “Year Of Action”
Also, working closely with Rebecca Fehlig, we are creating a incentive program for our staff AND volunteers to encourage greater participation. Each team performance is measured on point based system for following:
Blue Buildings: Renewals, New Buildings (extra points if in country we’re not represented)
Signatures: Canada, Princeton and NYC not included
# of New BLUE Community Events
New Revenue Raised in April
LIUB Site Registration
After this call, all staff will be receiving a link to this presentation, but also a two –page document of the action items the we discussed here today, as well as a list of materials that are available for us and our volunteers. As I mentioned, we will be setting up additional calls, not only for our field staff on how to work through their volunteers, but calls for our volunteers as well as call for each of the departments to go over the key role you and your team members will play in the weeks ahead.
While logos and web banners are currently on the LIUB website, we will also be providing the staff with information on where to find materials such as posters, slim-jims, PSA’s, etc. included will be a list of promotional items – many of which were identified by the field development staff at last years volunteer leadership conference. We will be updating the auto signatures and sending out the instructions that are on AS Central so that everyone in the organization has a uniformed look and will be promoting our Illuminate / Donate / Advocate efforts. I hope this is briefing has excited you about this years campaign… and I can tell you that those of us here in NY and Princeton in the events and program development department, communications and awareness, SMOF, corporate relations, as well as our co-founders office and Bob and Suzanne themselves, we’re all excited about the new direction LIUB is headed.
I wanted to open it up to any question that you may have.