Objective

The Allstate Foundation and Roadtrip Nation are proud to present "The New Volunteers," a groundbreaking YouTube docuseries showcasing inspiring stories of youth from across the country making a significant impact in their communities.

The Allstate Foundation's youth empowerment strategy is built on the belief that young people are not just the leaders of tomorrow but are also the changemakers of today. By investing in programs and initiatives that support youth service, we aim to create a ripple effect that will benefit communities nationwide.

Roadtrip Nation’s traditional format is one-hour documentaries aired on PBS affiliates. The Allstate Foundation funded one of these documentaries in 2023, “Changemakers,” which focused on youth exploring career paths that enabled them to create an impact while making a living. A learning from that experience was that while distribution on PBS is fantastic and gets us into homes, to effectively reach young people and inspire them to serve, we should meet them where they’re at with shorter, more approachable content.

Enter – YouTube! One of the most trusted digital brands by Gen Z. The Allstate Foundation and Roadtrip Nation co-produced “The New Volunteers,” (Roadtrip Nation’s first-ever YouTube docuseries) creating five short episodes that reached youth directly via YouTube.  

Our primary objective was to get youth to watch the series, then be inspired to serve in their own communities. Our goals were to achieve 35,000 views with 1,000 hours of total watch time across the entire series.

Strategy

Telling inspiring stories of youth service
When developing the docuseries, we knew the content needed two things to resonate with our target audience (young people):

1. The tone of the docuseries needed to feel authentic. Roadtrip Nation’s long history in storytelling helped craft a tone and feel of realness that resonated with young people. The consideration of tone extended to our search for the perfect series host. After speaking with many wonderful candidates, we found our host in Anatola Araba, a young changemaker, artist, and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree with an inspiring ability to connect with young people and tell their stories. Her energy and curiosity shines through every episode in an authentic way, and she immediately made the youth interview subjects feel comfortable and at ease.

1. All stories should align with how today’s young people define service. Research from The Allstate Foundation and the Center for Expanding Leadership and Opportunity introduces a new, modern definition of service that resonates with today’s young people and reflects the many varied ways they serve communities. This definition goes beyond traditional volunteering, and we chose to spotlight youth service leaders from across the country reimagining service for a new generation, from painting community murals in New York to cleaning up the Louisiana coastline.

Turning ideas into action

The Allstate Foundation’s research with the Center for Expanding Leadership and Opportunity finds that 79% of Gen Zers recognize the importance and benefits of service, but say they need some help getting started. That’s why The Allstate Foundation partnered with DoSomething, a digital hub for youth-center leadership and service, to create a campaign page on their site. After watching the series, viewers were prompted to visit the hub to access service ideas and resources inspired by the content of each episode, as well as a “choose your own adventure” resource to design their own service projects.  

Optimizing paid media

To further the reach of this docuseries, we needed expertise for promoting content and worked with Allstate’s paid media team to align on goals and optimize ad targeting and placements to drive traffic. Using Allstate’s connections with YouTube, we were also able to be included in a YouTube beta test to drive even more visibility of this work.

Results

Using the combined audience expertise of Roadtrip Nation and The Allstate Foundation Youth Empowerment team – coupled with Allstate’s paid media experts – was a recipe for success. Not only did we exceed our goals, but our partnership with DoSomething resulted in 1,505 volunteer sign-ups and 1,215 recorded volunteer hours – a testament that the series was successful in inspiring young people to serve and improve communities. We heard stories from young people like Arman, a 16-year-old from California. Inspired by The New Volunteers, he completed a project on the DoSomething page to clean up cigarettes in his community, then went even further by organizing local clean up events and volunteering at his local food bank. These videos are also assets we can use in the future as continue our efforts in empowering youth to serve and improve communities.

Goals:

Total episode views (engagement)

• Goal: 35,000
• Achieved: 1,158,400 (3,310% to goal)

Watch time in hours (engagement)

• Goal: 1,000
• Achieved: 14,103 (1,410% to goal)

YouTube ad video views (amplification)

• Goal: 2,500,000
• Achieved: 5,547,039 (222% to goal)

Media