This March, the world ground to a halt due to the pandemic. Many changemakers faced immediate threats to their existence. We sent a simple question into the world: how can we support you?

One of the requests was from Natalie Lukkenaar, founder of Kenyan vocal school Sauti Academy. With the entire country under lockdown, her classes were all cancelled, students were stuck at home, and teachers without an income. She asked us to help her organisation Sauti Academy adapt to the new reality created by the crisis. We got to work. We knew we could not do it on our own, so we decided to create an experimental ‘Crisis Coalition’. An experimental group brainstorm format that we can potentially use to support organisations that combine the biggest need with the biggest potential.

In April, we hosted an online meetup to bring the brains within the Brand The Change community together for the Sauti cause. People from all over the world and a myriad of professional backgrounds joined an online 'crisis coalition' to help Natalie generate ideas to adapt her offer and communicate it.

Natalie broke the ice with a very on-topic icebreaker. We all turned on our mics and sang (talking about facing your fears!!).

We then separated out into three groups to tackle one of the major ussues: 1) Clarify the offer. 2) Take it online and 3) Get the word out. We used Miro, the online collaboration tool, to gather our ideas.

In 90 minutes, a cloud of ideas to switch to the new reality formed, with expert input on areas like marketing, SEO, user journey and value proposition. The outcome: the entire group was unified around the idea that Sauti already had all the ingredients to take their work online. They didn’t need a big new brand strategy, or a time intensive rebrand or new site. All they needed was a simple and clear offer that people stuck at home could say yes to easily.

This created a super lean user journey online for prospective customers. The Sauti team could promote the online offer with a simple link to a new landing page, through free and very effective use of whatsapp communities, and from the site, new customers could book sessions directly with the instructors.

A big thank you to everyone who attended and contributed their time and brainpower!

What happened next?

After the session, Natalie restructured the Sauti website with a new simplified online offer. Then, with the incredibly generous support of one of the crisis coalition participants, Hugo Faustino (💪💪💪 Hugo!!), Sauti strengthened their presence and ranking online and on Youtube.

Take a look at the new Sauti offer here. And, if the crisis coalition got you excited about learning to sing, why not book a class?

The crisis coalition showed, once again, how much brainpower there is in the Brand The Change community, and what can happen when we put our heads together. A big heartfelt thank you to everyone who participated in this experiment!

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