Cause marketing and customer engagement

Consumers seek to do business with socially responsible organizations that contribute to their communities and the environment. We continued to advance our community investment strategy by offering our customers product and service options that result in a direct benefit to local charities. This enabled us to invest $5.3 million in 2011 to strengthen the communities where our customers live.

TV for Good

When a customer signs up for Optik TV™, good things happen in their local community. Through our 2011 TV for Good™ campaign, TELUS gave $100 to a local community project for every new TELUS TV® customer in participating communities. Since 2009, TELUS has contributed $6.5 million to 35 local community projects in Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia.

In 2011, we launched 13 new campaigns. Our Victoria campaign, as one example, raised $500,000 for the David Foster Foundation in support of children in need of organ transplants. We did not launch 16 campaigns as targeted but instead chose to maximize the impact of our giving in 13 communities with strong campaigns. Our goal for 2012 is to launch at least 12 new TV for Good™ campaigns.

The following are examples of TV for Good™ campaigns:

Chilliwack Hospital and Healthcare Foundation

Through the campaign, TELUS donated $170,000 in support of a new state-of-the-art emergency department, laboratory and pediatrics unit for the Chilliwack Hospital and Healthcare Foundation in B.C. The new emergency facility triples its space, accommodating growth from 37,000 to 45,000 patient visits per year with special attention to child-safe and senior friendly areas.

Northern Lights Health Foundation

The Northern Lights Health Foundation in Fort McMurray, Alberta benefited from a $175,000 donation from TELUS.  The funds were used to invest in a Pulmonary Function Test System, used to diagnose asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in adults and children. Funds also went toward the purchase of video and transnasal gastroscopes.

Association du cancer de l’Est du Québec

Thanks to the generosity of its Optik TV™ customers in the Lower St. Lawrence, Gaspé Peninsula and North Shore regions, TELUS was able to donate $283,000 to the Association du cancer de l’Est du Québec (ACEQ) to cover accommodations at Hôtellerie Omer-Brazeau for individuals affected by cancer.

This donation allows the Association to offer a room for a modest $20 per day, including breakfast and lunch, to cancer patients and those accompanying them. In addition, the company’s financial support now provides each of Hôtellerie Omer-Brazeau’s 38 rooms with high-speed Internet access, allowing patients to stay in touch with loved ones.

To learn more about the TV for Good™ campaigns, visit telus.com/community.

Phones for Good

Launched in March 2011, TELUS gave $100 to a local community project through our Phones for Good® campaign for every new smartphone customer in participating communities.

As of January 31, 2012, $1.19 million has been donated to 12 communities across B.C. and Alberta. To learn more about the Phones for Good® campaigns, visit telus.com/community.

Our goal for 2012 is to launch at least 12 new Phones for Good® campaigns.

The following are examples of Phones for Good® campaigns:

Medicine Hat Regional Hospital

The Medicine Hat Health Foundation benefited from $100,000 which will be used for the purchase of equipment to support children’s health. These enhancements provide state-of-the-art medical equipment and technology, creating a more home-like environment for friends and family to gather for strength and support.

Canuck Place Children's Hospice

The $100,000 raised by TELUS' smartphone campaign will help build a new Canuck Place Children’s Hospice in Abbotsford, for B.C. children and teens facing life-threatening illnesses. This second location for Canuck Place will have 10 beds and five family suites to help meet the growing need for pediatric palliative care and reduce travel for the families who need it.

TELUS Go Pink

TELUS, the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation (CBCF) and Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation (QBCF) partnered to launch the 2011 Go Pink campaign. This campaign raised funds to support breast cancer fellowships for research into the early detection and treatment of a disease that affects more than 23,000 Canadian women and men each year.

In October 2011, TELUS announced it would give $25 for every pink BlackBerry Curve 9360 smartphone sold across Canada to CBCF/QBCF. The campaign raised over $400,000 toward breast cancer fellowships.

The campaign also involved several innovative fundraising initiatives such as the Go Pink Facebook application that invited people to join the Pink Network™.

To date, TELUS has contributed over $15 million since 2000 to help find a cure for cancer and support enhanced cancer treatments for all Canadians.

Junior Achievement

In 2011, TELUS launched the Built for Business campaign that met our $250,000 fundraising target in support of Junior Achievement (JA). For every smartphone for business purchased in Toronto, TELUS donated $50 to this registered charity.

TELUS team members also supported the cause, delivering two of JA of Canada’s most powerful finance programs to more than 760 grade seven and eight students. Dollars with Sense is an age-appropriate introduction to personal finance and financial planning for grade seven students and Economics for Success is meant to inspire grade eight students to plan their careers and recognize the connection between staying in school and achieving their dreams. Forty-nine of our team members participated and more than 4,500 students across the Greater Toronto area have been positively affected by JA’s programming.

Opération Enfant Soleil

Opération Enfant Soleil is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1988 to raise funds for pediatric care and run health-related programs for children in Quebec. The organization distributes funding to Quebec's four major pediatric centres - Centre mère-enfant du CHUQ à Québec, le CHU Sainte-Justine de Montréal, Montreal Children’s Hospital at McGill University Health Centre and le CHU de Sherbrooke. TELUS has partnered with Opération Enfant Soleil for 13 years, contributing over $2 million since 1998. Our support has included:

• Supplying telephone lines, call centre equipment and dedicated volunteers for its annual telethon
• Selling TELUS critters during the holiday season
• Being a lead sponsor at its fundraising events.

For eight weeks in spring 2011, a $25 donation to Operation Enfant Soleil was made for all new activations of TELUS smartphones or Mobile Internet Keys made in the greater Quebec City area, greater Montreal area and Rimouski. The campaign raised a total of $204,500 for this organization.

David Foster Foundation

Since 1986, the David Foster Foundation (DFF) has assisted more than 600 Canadian families with children in need of major organ transplants and has provided them the funds to help ease the financial burden associated with caring for a sick child.  In 2011, TELUS donated $500,000 to the Foundation as a result of our TV for Good™ campaign. TELUS also continues to support DFF through a Facebook campaign that donates $2 for every new “like” on the Foundation’s page. To date, the campaign has produced 10,551 new fans and 11,551 new likes, which have led to an additional $23,100 donation taking TELUS’ total contribution to $523,100 in 2011.

The Foundation also educates Canadians about organ donor registration and despite its efforts, only 14 per cent of Canadians have registered to donate organs in the event of death while approximately 4,000 people each year are waitlisted for transplant surgeries, many of whom are children.  To improve this outcome, TELUS will launch a series of initiatives designed to support organ donation programs in Canada. In 2012, TELUS will give $100 for every new TELUS TV® customer in Victoria (to a maximum of $100,000). Additionally, we are working with the Foundation to launch a new website called DaysInWait.com.  This innovative community site will enable Canadians to share their stories and experiences related to organ donation.  With recent statistics indicating a nation-wide plateau of organ donation registrations, TELUS’ goal is to inspire Canadians to register with their provincial organ donation registry and help reduce the wait list for organ transplant surgeries. 

Engaging our customers through social media

In 2011, TELUS continued to evolve our social media cause marketing campaigns, allowing TELUS to further engage customers online.

In 2011, TELUS was the first company in Canada to launch a community-focused Facebook Places campaign. For every person in Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver who checked in at their local TELUS dealer via Facebook, TELUS gave $20 to the local Boys and Girls Club in their community. This innovative use of the social media tool helped TELUS raise $2,100 for the organization.

In May 2011, Canadians were invited to help select the next TELUS critter through an original Facebook application. There were 27 different critters to choose from, including some old favourites, such as the classic monkeys and hippos, and some exotic newcomers, such as the lion-tailed macaque and the red panda. As part of the campaign, TELUS pledged to give $1 to the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) for each vote submitted up to 100,000. The goal of $100,000 was met within days of the campaign kick-off with over 460,000 total votes submitted.

Koodonation

Koodonation.com is Canada’s first online micro-volunteering community. This entirely not-for-profit, grassroots community was launched by TELUS’ Koodo® in October 2011. The site allows individuals and Canadian charities to work together online through the concept known as micro-volunteering.  Micro-volunteering gives web savvy Canadians the opportunity to help Canadian not-for-profit organizations, right from their computer.

A Koodonation™ Challenge kicked off the 2011 launch. Four schools competed in a wipe-out type event for a chance to win a monetary contribution for their charity of choice. Durham College won the Challenge and subsequently succeeded in signing up over 600 students from their school to Koodonation™.  As part of the launch, a host of Canadian celebrities joined a media tour that provided good profile for the new site. The Koodonation™ story generated more than 90 media stories with an audience reach exceeding 22 million.  Koodonation™ also partnered with Fundchange, sponsored by TELUS, and offered workshops for non-profits on social media. The response was overwhelming and both workshops were outsold.

The objectives for 2012 are simple  – TELUS will grow the Koodonation™ community by getting more micro-volunteers and non-profits signed-up, and increase the participation rate. By March 2012 the site had already gained 3,000 microvolunteers, 173 non-profit partners and had resolved 193 challenges since our launch.

Fundchange

In 2011, TELUS partnered with Ideavibes to bring Fundchange to charities across Canada. Fundchange is an on-line community that uses social media to help charities engage their next generation of donors through crowdfunding. Through Fundchange a charity can post a project with a maximum funding requirement of $5,000 and see it promoted and funded within days or weeks. Like micro-financing, Fundchange gives the power of change to individuals and their peer to peer network who feel traditional fundraising and big campaigns are not for them and allows them to focus on doable asks or projects.

Charities apply to join Fundchange and enter a vetting process, including verification of their good standing with the Canada Revenue Agency. Once this has been completed, charities are then permitted to post projects, which are reviewed prior to “going live” to ensure they are appropriately worded and abide by the Terms and Conditions set out by Ideavibes and TELUS to ensure the integrity of the site and the Fundchange brand.

For charities, Fundchange is easy to use, affordable, immediate and provides a doorway to potential funders; in particular, a new generation of funders. For funders, it is the gateway to a world of community projects and a simple tool for funding the ones that speak to their passions.

In addition to supporting the launch of Fundchange, TELUS supported a number of social media and crowdfunding workshops across the county and held two matching campaigns resulting in more than $100,000 being donated to charities through the site in 2011.