In the days ahead of Super Bowl LVII, the Philadelphia Eagles leveraged National Gun Violence Survivors Week and launched a new film promoting the team’s ‘A Fan Of Change‘ campaign.
Created by Philadelphia-based agency The Perception, the campaign is part of the Eagles’ ongoing efforts to combat the city’s gun violence crisis and the latest creative features local poet and gun violence survivor Ja’Nell Hall-Ragin.
The aim for the 2023 iteration of the initiative was to take the campaign to another level by featuring real, local people who have been impacted by violence into the campaign creation process. So, at the core of the new work, launched on 3 February was a hero, 90-second film narrated by local Philadelphian – the artist, actress and poet Ja’Nell Hall-Ragin.
Ja’Nell, who lost her brother to gun violence, reads her poem about the pride and pain that Philadelphia experiences set to footage and imagery of people from various groups and organisations all working to drive change.
Aiming to inspire hope across the community and to drive engagement and traffic to the non-profits chosen to be championed by the campaign, the Eagles launched ‘A Fan of Change’: a digital media campaign aimed at linking the passion of Eagles fans to a call-to-action to end gun violence once and for all.
‘A Fan Of Change’ is a multi-strand, multi-partner project focused on breaking the cycles of poverty and violence in the community.
Tragically, 2022 saw Philadelphia experience its most deadly year on record with total murders surpassing the city’s previous tragic high for the second year in a row. Driven on by the surge in violent crime, the Eagles teamed up with The Perception back in 2022 to work together to bring to life the fact that the team and the players did not want to sit on the sidelines doing nothing while Philadelphians were dying.
The 2022 launch work for the campaign was titled ‘Enough Keeping Score’.
The ‘Eagles Social Justice Fund’ awarded $410,350 in grants to nine local non-profits featured in the campaign and promoted through the initiative: all of which provide financial education and support for violence prevention. Indeed, in the last five years the Fund has provided area-based organizations with more than $2 million in funding.
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Recent ‘Everytown for Gun Safety’ research found that more than 110 Americans are killed by guns every single day and Philadelphia saw a record 514 homicides in 2022: the first time the city had seen a record year for murders twice in a row since 1960.
In Philadelphia gun violence is a major and a growing concern – a tragedy that disproportionately affects underserved communities of colour. Indeed, multiple studies show that two key contributors fuelling rising gun violence are poverty and unemployment.
The campaign’s web hub was created in partnership with The City of Philadelphia, Office of Policy and Strategic Initiatives for Criminal Justice & Public Safety and it includes multiple resources ‘to help you and the people you love step out of the violence’ – including a map providing resources available to support creating safe neighbourhoods.
This initiative reflects a growing trend for sports teams to champion anti-crime initiatives: another current standout example is the Arsenal and Adidas award-winning ‘No More Red’ anti knife crime project which launched back in January 2022.
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