nfptweetup

Next up in our series of session previews is Joseph Freeman, Digital Community Executive at Diabetes UK, as he returns to tell us more about the ‘hideous piece of work’ Active Fat…

At last November’s NFPtweetup I (along with Laila, then of BHF fame but also on the bill at this tweetup) talked about the collaborative project between the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK and Diabetes UK called Active Fat. We shared our experiences of these three charities working together to combine their powers for the greater good. And it worked.

It worked so well that we thought we’d do it again for a second year – but bigger and better. More social media. Better calls to action. More coverage. But with the same, nasty Active Fat character (“active fat”, for those not in the know, is the fat the gathers around your waist that can lead to cancer, heart disease and Type 2 diabetes – all pretty frightening and a very good reason for us to all work together to raise awareness).

Armed with a fancy new website, new video and a Twitter account take-over, we talked to our combined followers across social media (and even in “traditional” press!) about how to fight off active fat. And it was fun, even with the more serious undertones of improving the health of the nation.

So how did we do? What challenges did we face? Will we get someone to dress up as the Active Fat character to talk at NFPtweetup*?

We look forward to telling you all about it…

Joe Freeman – @Diabetes UK (with Roberto Kussabi, @theBHF, and Aaron Eccles, @CR_UK)

*No one will be dressed as the Active Fat character. Sorry. Although for a pint (or donation, I guess) one of us will do his voice.

Is anyone else willing to chip in to experience this? I might do a whip round with a collection tin to see if we can make this happen!

Teri

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In our second blog post to warm up for NFPtweetup next Thursday, 10 June, we get a little taster from Joe Freeman of Diabetes UK about what he, and colleagues from Cancer Research UK and British Heart Foundation, will be sharing at the event:

Diabetes UK, Cancer Research UK and the British Heart Foundation have been working together to raise awareness of the dangers of Active Fat. The fat that makes up your love handles – actually, I won’t assume that you have love handles, that would be rude… The fat that makes up my love handles doesn’t just sit there doing nothing. It’s active, and can cause cancer, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease – scary thought.

With this in mind, it was decided that we should raise awareness about it. Three charities, combining their powers to spread the message about the evilness of active fat. And Active Fat is evil, as I’m sure you’ve all seen in the wonderful animations that were created to spread the awareness message.

All three charities have a large online supporter base across a multitude of social networks and, by working together, we were able to share joint messages and spread the word much further than we would have been able to do on our own. We’ll be talking about how we did that and to what extent this was a success. Oh, and did we learn anything from it? We’ll share that too!

Joe

Digital Communities Manager
Diabetes UK
@JosephFreeman



Originally posted:

June 4, 2010 on the beautiful world blog

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