Cancel Corona cause campaign by Buena

Donate what you’re not spending during the pandemic to fight the pandemic.

Client: Cancel Corona
Year: 2020
What we did: Campaign, PR, Production
Result: 2.5M earned impressions, $0 paid media

By the numbers

$0paid media
2.5Mearned media impressions

Millions lost work and meals while the rest of us spent less

In March 2020 the pandemic shut down everyday life. NPR reported that 23 million Americans had been laid off or had their hours cut, and school closures cut 22 million children off from the free meals they relied on.

At the same time, 50 million people were suddenly working from home. Commutes, meals out and happy hours disappeared overnight, and with them a lot of daily spending.

People wanted to help but didn't know how much to give or where it would do the most good. Momentum's own research had found that people want to give about 2.5 times more than they do, held back by exactly those questions.

Cancel Corona ad over an empty station escalator: 'My train ticket is fighting coronavirus.'

Donate what you're not spending to fight the pandemic

Coronavirus canceled everything. So we asked people to cancel it back. With Momentum, a platform that connects donations to everyday events, we built Cancel Corona: calculate what you're saving while stuck at home, and donate it to the fight.

The calculators did the math for your commute, your meals out or your drinks. Then they set up a small automatic donation at the matching moment of each day.

Momentum passed 100% of donations to the charities and covered the fees. Cancel Corona launched at cancelcorona.org on March 18, 2020.

Cancel Corona ad: 'My avocado toast is fighting coronavirus.'

Your commute, your meals and your drinks, each matched to a cause

Donate your commute. Every weekday morning, what you saved by not driving, riding or taking the train went to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy's COVID-19 Relief Fund, for people suddenly out of work.

Donate your meals. Americans were saving over $1 billion a day by not eating out, so your savings went to Feeding America, for kids cut off from school lunches.

Donate your drinks. Americans usually spend over $200 million a day on alcohol, and every day at happy hour your bar tab went to the CDC Foundation, the WHO and Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Your commute
Weekday-morning donations to help people suddenly out of work.
Your meals
Savings from eating out go to Feeding America for kids missing school lunches.
Your drinks
Happy-hour donations to the CDC Foundation, WHO and Johns Hopkins.

The Corona Collection chart: 30% frontline health workers, 25% vaccine research, 25% unemployed and quarantined, 10% kids' meals, 10% preventing spread

2.5 million earned impressions with no paid media

Cancel Corona spread without a single paid ad. By our count at the time, it earned 2.5 million media impressions. It launched on Product Hunt and was covered by The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

For people who didn't want to pick a cause, Momentum's Corona Collection spread each gift across five needs. Those were frontline health workers, vaccine research, people out of work, meals for kids and preventing the spread.

We don't have a final total for how much was donated. What we know is that people found a way to turn a canceled spring into help.