Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Coalition of Hawaii is the 2013-2014 winner of the annual Ad 2 Honolulu pro-bono campaign, and as such will receive around $1 million in free advertising and marketing services.
Certified as a nonprofit organization in 1992, Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies is part of a national network devoted to improving maternal, child and family health through various means, channels and partnerships.
While part of a national network, its work is "Hawaii-specific," said Ad 2 Honolulu Public Service Co-chairwoman Laura Ward.
Being part of the network enables expectant women, new mothers and other clients to use technology accessible nationwide, but the local Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies operation does not receive funding from the network.
"They only have two full-time staff members" and three part-timers and, like most nonprofits, are trying to do lots of heavy lifting without a lot of hands or resources.
"We saw them immediately as the ‘411′ for mothers that maybe just found out they are pregnant, are pregnant or have just given birth," Ward said, likening the group to Wikipedia, in a way. "These days you can look up anything on the Internet," but sometimes you just need to talk with someone voice to voice, she said.
Also, not everybody who needs services necessarily has 24/7 access to a computer.
As Ad 2 Honolulu screened nonprofit applicants for this year’s campaign, one of its take-aways from meeting with the group was that it wanted to increase the volume of calls to the nonprofit’s Mothers Care line, increase traffic to the organization’s website and increase enrollment in classes and programs, Ward said.
Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Executive Director Lisa Kimura and the 10 members of the Ad 2 Public Service Committee will meet this week. From there Ad 2 members can figure out how best to raise overall awareness of the group in the community and achieve other, more specific goals.
As it is, the website is a deep trove of information on birthing to birth certificates to breast-feeding; from childbirth organizations to adoption to child development; parenting to paternity to post-partum depression and other relevant subjects.
Despite its limited resources, or perhaps because of them, the organization is active in the free-to-access social media space, sharing pregnancy, childbirth, childhood and maternal health-related news and information about its services on its Twitter and Facebook pages.
As always happens with Ad 2 campaigns, the organization’s profile is sure to gain visibility once the work hits the marketplace. It certainly worked for the Aloha Medical Mission Dental Clinic, the Hawaii Heart Foundation and many others whom Ad 2 members have poured heart and soul into helping.
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Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
