CASE STUDY: BBC World Challenge fights global issues one grant at a time

Background

World Challenge, jointly organised annually by BBC World News, Newsweek and Shell, was created in 2005 as a competition that rewards people and businesses who bring economic, social and environmental benefits to their local communities through projects at grassroots level to alleviate global challenges such as poverty and pollution.

The winner of World Challenge receives a grant of US$20,000, while the second and third finalists each receives a grant of US$10,000. The grants are awarded to these projects or businesses for their own use and furtherance of their enterprise only.

This year’s World Challenge finalists are from Denmark, Guatemala, India, Kenya, Madagascar, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, Rwanda and Tanzania.

Aim

World Challenge aims to serve as a vehicle that communicates the positive, sustainable work done by many businesses and communities around the world, while also involving viewers, who play a key role in the process by nominating projects and voting to decide the ultimate winner for the year.

Execution

World Challenge is executed across three different media platforms including print, digital and broadcast.

In print, BBC partners with Newsweek to publish articles on the finalists as well as news related to the competition, six 30 minute programmes featuring the 12 finalists are broadcast on BBC World News and a dedicated competition website is hosted at Theworldchallenge.co.uk.

The three media platforms works at every stage to drive audiences from one to the other, wherever the best content experience is found, and work closely together at key points in the competition.

The audience and readers are invited to vote online for their favourite finalist. And to generate further interest, social media is also utilised to engage the audience and as the glue to bind these different components together.

Result

Since 2005, World Challenge has attracted nearly 4,000 nominations from an average of more than 100 countries every year. Since then, more than 400,000 votes have been registered through the World Challenge website and financial grants have been awarded to 15 projects worldwide (based on awards going out to the top three finalists each year).

2007’s winning project, T’ikapapa, was awarded a US$20,000 grant to invest in its initiative that helps Peruvian farmers to find new markets for their potato crops. After a year, they found within their organisation a multinational snack food company had helped to transform the native market completely. T’ikapapa’s appearance on the programme and in Newsweek had allowed them to open doors and secure deals that would not have been possible before.