In 2017, the Phoenix Local Organizing Committee, Salt River Project, and National Forest Foundation partnered with Change the Course (CtC) to create a first-of-its-kind water conservation and restoration campaign activation built around the 2017 Phoenix NCAA Final Four® Tournament. Learn more about the activation here.
How They Inspire
The CtC campaign activation leverages the influential Final Four® platform to educate, engage and activate fans around water conservation and restoration. Custom branded photo booths and support materials were located in three locations throughout the tournament to educate fans about their embedded water footprint, simple and easy ways to conserve water in their daily lives, and how partners are restoring water across Arizona.
Throughout the tournament, fans were asked to pledge to conserve water by participating in the photo booths, and publically sharing that commitment by posting the gifs on social media with #DroppingBuckets4AZ. For each pledge made, 1,000 gallons of water will be restored to a critically dewatered river or watershed in Arizona through BEF’s Change the Course portfolio water restoration projects. The campaign resulted in a total of 5,300 fan pledges to conserve water, which means 5,300,000 gallons of water restored to Arizona water restoration projects
The Impact They’re Making
Being the first of it’s kind, the 2017 Phoenix NCAA Final Four® Tournament CtC campaign activation paved the way for a successful partnership model to engage sports fans in water restoration efforts at a large scale. This event supported a legacy sustainability stewardship project, the Black River Headwaters Restoration project
Another notable achievement was a percent of the event’s water footprint was balanced through Water Restoration Certificates (WRCs) that directly support Arizona water restoration projects.
