"Services for the UnderServed (SUS) has been helping individuals and families faced with a wide range of challenges-mental illness, developmental disability, physical disability, AIDS, homelessness, poverty-since 1978. SUS is a local charity with little brand recognition and a very limited marketing budget (under $20,000). With thousands of charities competing for the public's generosity, SUS needed something that would simultaneously introduce itself to the public, tell its story and inspire people to give. Having tried other grassroots efforts in the past with moderate success, it needed something bigger and more impactful to make SUS the charity of choice for generous New Yorkers. The core mission of SUS is to transform the lives of the people it serves. To play on this, we transformed the most stereotypical symbol of American homelessness, the cardboard box, into something beautiful. With the help of a local artist and current SUS residents, we used the cardboard to create a life-sized replica of the housing SUS provides to its members, down to the last detail. And, thanks to special text-to-donate"tags, we were able to monetize the moment visitors pulled out their phones to take a picture. During November, the installation traveled across New York, hitting popular locations like Times Square, the Veterans Day Parade, Bowling Green Park and City Hall Park. Hundreds of thousands saw the exhibit, including local politicians and other influencers. The local press (including the Gothamist, which reaches 250,000 readers), marketing trades and bloggers covered the project, resulting in hundreds of thousands of media impressions. The impact was immediate. During the one-month push, traffic to SUS Web sites increased 1,600 percent and donations rose 437 percent, allowing SUS—for the first time ever—to provide a holiday gift to every one of the 3,500+ people it serves."