Sins Invalid Disability Justice Performance Collective

The Challenge

• During the pandemic, Sins Invalid was holding their first-ever fully livestreamed theater production, “We Love Like Barnacles: Crip Lives in Climate Chaos” in October 2020, but lacked the digital expertise to promote beyond their normal in-person Bay Area audience.
• They lacked a social media strategy, earned media strategy, and had poor click-through and conversion rates in their email newsletter.
• The goals were to sell tickets, bring in donations, and use publicity around the production to educate the public during the 2020 Election about the connections between climate justice and disability justice.

The Process:

• Analyzed engagement across all their current digital platforms in order to identify potential areas to increase awareness and trust in their work.
• They over-relied on Facebook because they had difficulty updating their website. After training them in effectively using their website, we then worked to shift online traffic to their website where people could buy tickets, sign up for their email list, and donate.
• Their email list had high open rates but low conversion rates, so we re-tooled their emails to be focused on driving people to conversions including buying tickets and donating.
• Used Sins Invalid’s social media platforms to engage in political conversations happening online related to the theme of the production, including climate change and disability rights organizing.
• Leveraged social media influencers including Alice Wong, founder of #CripTheVote.
• Put together a toolkit for traditional media and social media which included a press release, original artwork, professional promotional photos, performer biographies, and preview sound bites from performances.
• Reached out to earned media both in the Bay Area as well as other areas where the performance had been staged/filmed, including Olympia and Houston.
• Put together toolkits for allied organizations in the disability and climate fields to host viewing parties and fundraising events for the show.
• Provided content and marketing support to launch a new podcast, “Intro the Crip Universe: Crip Lives in Climate Chaos” with three episodes of content related to the upcoming production and featuring Sins Invalid staff/performers.
• During the performances, used social media and the in-show “chat” feature to promote a live silent auction fundraiser.
• Provided social media coverage of the live Q&A which followed each showing, and leveraged online engagement during the Q&A to build interest in subsequent showings.
• Launched a new podcast "Cripping the Anthropocene" to compliment the performance and discus connections between disability justice and climate justice.
• Leveraged partnerships with organizations like "Free The Work" to promote Sins Invalid's work on social media.

The Results:

• Over 1,000 ticketed guests view the show across our four streamed events.
• Raised an additional $2000+ from a silent auction.
• Reached over 1.4 million people with social media content related to the show, and Sins Invalid was the #1 search result on Google for “Disability Justice.”  
• Media coverage including New York Times and Bay City News.
• Our political messages about climate change and disability justice directly influenced the  2020 election, as our community’s hashtag #CripTheVote was featured on TV news, and Biden mentioned “disability” in his first speech as President-Elect.
• The show also built momentum for a very successful year-end fundraising campaign, with Sins Invalid exceeding their expected fundraising goals by hundreds of thousands of dollars in November/December.