"Mercy Was Here" succeeded on three levels:

? General awareness
? News coverage
? Fundraising

General awareness

We developed a strategy to supplement the 3,000 "Mercy Was Here" roadside signs with 60 billboards chosen for their proximity to places where Mercy Flight had landed since 1981.

The billboards alone were responsible for 21 million impressions over the 2-month campaign. (The average billboard generated approximately 5,000 impressions a day. Multiply that by 60 days and 60 billboards and you have 21 million impressions. The same logic applied to the 3,000 roadside signs added up to another 100 million impressions.)

One measure of this higher awareness was a 30% increase in calls for Mercy Flight service during the campaign. A second was a response by the New York State DOT to safety problems along a stretch of road whose dangers were highlighted by a half dozen "Mercy Was Here" signs. A third was that dozens of letters spontaneously poured into Mercy Flight from survivors and their families, reminded of their experience by encountering the signs. Some, like that of David Weber, Jr., included pictures taken at the scene of their rescue.

News coverage

The campaign, in combination with Mercy Flight's own community relations efforts, garnered considerable press attention: 20 television and 7 radio stories or mentions and 13 articles in various newspapers throughout the area.

Fundraising

"Mercy Was Here" raised awareness and friends for Mercy Flight. The next step was to raise funds, and to that end Flynn & Friends created and managed a direct mail solicitation in November 2001.

Our strategy was to target households qualified by income in area zip codes where Mercy Flight is most active. We designed, wrote and mailed a simple one-page letter with a "Mercy Was Here" sign at the top which emphasized the fact that individual contributions account for nearly 20% of Mercy Flight's operating budget. The campaign brought in 723 new donors, with an average gift of nearly $40. Subsequent direct mail campaigns in the spring and fall of 2002 added another 2,000 names and donations on an equivalent level.

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