GENYOUth Wins Prestigious Ragan PR Daily Award

Ragan’s PR Daily Awards recognizes GENYOUth’s “Tackling Student Hunger with Taste of the NFL” 2022 campaign as the Nonprofit Campaign category winner

New York, NY — GENYOUth has been named a winner in Ragan’s PR Daily Awards in the Nonprofit Campaign category.

Ragan’s PR Daily Awards celebrates the top communications campaigns, events, initiatives, publications and more that were instrumental in the success of organizations and clients. Ragan held a special award celebration on November 2 at the Edison Ballroom, recognizing the best communications work from the past year. The evening’s gala also featured a special performance by the Emmy-winning trio, Time for Three.

A full list of winners and their featured profiles can be found here.

GENYOUth was chosen from a wide pool of entries to receive recognition in the Nonprofit Campaign category for its impressive work on its “Tackling Student Hunger with Taste of the NFL” 2022 campaign. “GENYOUth set themselves apart from an outstanding field of entrants. Their work was exceptional and displayed their innovative strategies for achieving success. Congratulations, GENYOUth. We look forward to your continued success,” said Brendan Gannon, Senior Marketing Manager for Awards Programs at Ragan Communications.

GENYOUth partnered with Taste of the NFL to tackle food insecurity among students. When assigned to host the NFL’s premier culinary charitable event, Taste of the NFL, GENYOUth, a 501c3 nonprofit organization that creates healthier school communities, assembled a team of pros to enact a communication strategy with the aim of raising funds to end childhood hunger. With the support of presenting sponsors—Frito-Lay and the PepsiCo Foundation—and End Student Hunger partners—California Blue Shield, Undeniably Dairy, and SAP—the event scored big in GENYOUth’s mission to end student hunger.

The objectives were to increase access to and participation in school meals among America’s food insecure kids from 55 million in 2021 to 66 million in 2022, from proceeds contributed to or inspired by Taste of the NFL. It also aimed to double the number of Taste of the NFL earned media impressions from 400 million in 2021 to 800 million 2022, with the goal of converting media awareness into event participation.

GENYOUth tapped into its existing purpose-driven relationships with the NFL and event sponsors along with dedicated spokespersons with local and national media appeal, such as nationally renowned chefs Andrew Zimmern, Carla Hall, Tim Love, Mark Bucher and Lasheeda Perry to extend audience reach. End Student Hunger funded school events and equipment donations were also held in Los Angeles schools in the weeks leading up to the Taste of the NFL to show and tell GENYOUth’s commitment to tackling food insecurity in the Super Bowl’s host market.

Beyond earned media, the pre-event communications strategy included a pro-bono LA Times marketing partnership with print and digital advertising, paid Cincinnati social and paid LA radio to drive event participation from committed Super Bowl fans, and taped PSAs from veteran CBS sports anchor and GENYOUth Board Member James “JB” Brown and Tampa Bay Buccaneers Tight End and GENYOUth Board member Kyle Rudolph for social and web. More than 300 individual stories ran about the event.

More than exceeding the initial objectives, Taste of the NFL increased access to and participation in school meals by 69 percent, from 55 million to 93 million. The campaign also raised nearly $1.5 million, more than the original objective of $1 million, and quadrupled the number of media impressions from 400 million to 1.65 billion.

GENYOUth’s has been recognized for its accomplishment in a special write-up on Ragan’s internationally read news website.

About GENYOUth

GENYOUth is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that creates healthier school communities. Founded by America’s dairy farmers and the NFL, GENYOUth convenes a network of private and public partners, including Fortune 100 companies and foundations, to raise funds for youth wellness initiatives that give youth the inspiration, motivation, and programs to be healthy high-achieving students. GENYOUth’s flagship program, Fuel Up to Play 60, enrolls over 73,000 U.S. schools, reaching over 38 million students. Our school nutrition grants increase access to healthy school meals among food insecure students. NFL FLAG-In-Schools is the fastest-growing youth sport in the country (ages 6-14) with over 32,000 flag kits to school communities reaching over 15 million students. AdVenture Capital brings out the entrepreneurial spirit and creativity of students with the support of corporate mentors to solve real world problems. GENYOUth is the official charitable partner of Taste of the NFL, a purpose-driven Super Bowl culinary experience that raises awareness and generates funds to fight hunger and food insecurity to support the organization’s commitment to end student hunger.

About Ragan Communications

Ragan Communications and PR Daily run 15 awards programs each year, including the prestigious PR Daily Awards, Top Women in Communications Awards and Employee Communications Awards. These programs honor the top work in communications, PR, marketing, media and HR. Ragan Communications has been delivering trusted news, training and intelligence for more than 50 years to internal and external communicators and business executives via its conferences, webinars, training, awards, subscriptions and its membership divisions. Its daily news sites—PRDaily.com,  Ragan.com and RaganWellness.com—are read by more than 600,000 internal and external communicators and HR professionals monthly.

Contact:

Eric Slutsky, GENYOUth, eric.slutsky@genyouthnow.org, 917-391-6709