H&R Block has a high level of brand awareness, but suffered from the effects of being a seasonal service provider that is associated with a transactional federal requirement. Meanwhile, they have over 10,000 offices nationwide that provide value to their local communities with little awareness. The strategic challenge was to develop a program that allowed H&R Block to showcase their mission of building connections one block at a time to Make Every Block Better. Nextdoor couldn’t just rely on sharing the good work that H&R Block did, but had to submerse neighbors in the experience of nominating specific projects they would like to see completed in their neighborhood and allow them the opportunity to make every block better by actually bringing projects to life.

Objectives:

Match and outgrow submissions from 2020

Receive submissions from all 50 states

Select and execute on 10 projects

Increase awareness for the Make Every Block

For the second year in a row, H&R Block wanted to drive participation for their Make Every Block Better community impact platform, which brings various neighborhood improvement projects to life. By gathering local communities together, they're able to foster an environment to build strong, effective connections that inspire block-by-block change.

Both H&R Block and Nextdoor share a deep commitment to building community. In 2020 Nextdoor commissioned a study around a Kindness Challenge that found knowing 6 or more of your neighbors leads to being 40% less worried about finances in addition to helping greatly with loneliness. Based on this insights and H&R Block’s research leading to the Make Every Block Better initiative it was clear community betterment projects would be valuable.

H&R Block had great learnings from their first year of the campaign in 2020 in finding what messaging resonated best and what types of events were the most successful.

2021 brought additional challenges with COVID-19 still unpredictable. Shelter in place orders meant lockdowns across the country + different restrictions. Shift in community priorities meant we had to focus on local relief and needs as related to COVID - food, supplies, testing . Lots of people were moving and didn’t know the needs of their new community well enough to submit yet.

The campaign on Nextdoor targeted National audiences, encouraging them to take part in the Make Every Block Better initiative. Participants 18+ were all eligible to submit a neighborhood project and get involved in the initiative. H&R Block’s main business is tax support and help - which is a valid business for all audiences and therefore the targeting remained broad.

Using localized messaging coupled with engaging creative, neighbors were reached in their Nextdoor newsfeed. Neighbors were directed to a custom site, where they could submit their community project ideas and shared stories: https://hrbnextdoor.com/

Sponsored Posts in Nextdoor Newsfeed drove awareness of the initiative along with the related campaign site including a video recap of the year prior encouraging submissions and giving project ideas.

Ideas were executed after winning submissions were selected in 9 markets (with 1 upcoming based on weather).

When we noticed a slower submission rate vs. 2020, edits were made to the site to eliminate roadblocks. We took out the small business recommendations section. We made it clearer that photo upload was optional. In addition, a custom dedicated email was sent out to Nextdoor neighborhood leads that assisted in driving even more submissions.

The campaign ran February-November 2021 (the campaign ran for a similar time period in 2020)

H&R Block received over 1,500 submissions from all 50 states. 9 winning projects were chosen and with the help of neighbors and local businesses — were completed (with the final project being finished in 2022 due to weather), ultimately uplifting, improving and strengthening these communities.

A panel of Nextdoor members was polled to understand the impact of the program. 603 total responses of 538 neighbor and 65 project nominators. Results:

- Project responders 8.6x more likely to be aware of program

- Neighbors in project DMAs 1.7x more likely to be aware of program

- Project responders 5.9x as likely to have improved favorability

- Project responders 3.1x as likely to recommend H&R Block