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Young Guru Academy

08 January 2020

Driving up donations with inspiring Facebook video ads


This Turkish charity increased donations to its cause by 4.7X, thanks to a Facebook and Instagram video campaign that provided science discovery sets to 45,000 disadvantaged children.
Moulding young minds 
YGA was founded in 2000 in Istanbul, Turkey as a non-governmental organisation that encourages young individuals to improve their abilities and social conscience by developing international projects with the advantage of improving social benefits. Science Movement (Bilim Seferberliği) is a social responsibility project initiated by YGA to help make children love science. The project's goal is to grow self-confident, free-thinking individuals who can develop worthwhile projects.

Inspiration into donation 


With the goal of raising 750,000 TRY (just under £100,000) to supply special science sets to children all over Turkey through its science movement project. The concept was to encourage children to enjoy learning about science.

Creating “Sponsors of Curiosity”


YGA partnered with Facebook Creative Shop and creative agency 4129Grey to create a mobile-first video campaign that used both short-form and long-form videos. The video ads were delivered in three separate waves across Facebook and Instagram. In the first wave, the idea behind the Bilim Seferberliği project was explained visually, with an excited child taking a present from a box than making something from it. The second video invited viewers to interact, tapping on a Science Kit to open it for a child in the video, and offering Instagram stickers as rewards.
The third wave featured grateful testimonials from real children who had benefited from YGA’s work, and video appeals from local influencers and celebrities to their online followers to donate.
The influencers and celebrities themselves became “Sponsors of Curiosity” and invited their followers to join them in a series of fast-moving videos. With a few local celebrities taking part in live online interaction Q&A sessions, during which their audience would be invited to join them as a sponsor. 
The campaign caught the attention of the nation to such an extent that it was featured on three major Turkish TV channels. 

The result


Young Guru Academy’s Facebook and Instagram successfully launched its campaign nationwide in an appeal for people to make donations in the pursuit of science discover kits. Running from march 1-may 13, 2019 the campaign managed to achieve:

  • 4.7X increase in donations, compared to the previous 3 months

  • 900,000 TRY ($156,000 USD) donated in 3 months (exceeding target by 20%)

  • 20% of website visits resulted in donations

  • 2.9 million 10-second video views (39% of all video views)


This blog was originally taken from Facebook.