Pop quiz: How many nonprofits have swung by your neighborhood, knocked on your door and left a flier for you in the past few months?

The answer is likely zero. And there’s a good reason for that.

Today, the means of distributing an organization’s message—and the evolving technology—has almost entirely abandoned such traditional practices in favor of large-scale digital strategies. The National Adoption Center (NAC), an organization whose mission is deeply grounded outside of progressive reformatting of media and technology, is taking their message and diving head on with a new suite of social media-tailored ad spots.

“Our message, that every child deserves a family, and perhaps that family can be yours, needs to reach people in whichever ways they receive information and lead them to action,” says NAC Director of Communications Gloria Hochman.

The spots, which vary between 15 seconds and over a minute in length, harness a format and time constraint that, when paired with a well-developed social advertising blueprint, lend themselves particularly well to the overarching trends in social video content that reaches millions of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram users every day.

“In order to tell your nonprofit’s story effectively in the past, it required 30-second TV spots, glossy brochures, and a headline above the fold,” says Barbara Beck, co-owner of Sage Communications, on evolving media formats. “Now nonprofits are required to tell their stories with every Facebook post, LinkedIn article and tweet.”

In the ad spots, children are interviewed and discuss exactly why having a family is crucial to a child’s development and emotional foundation, anchored by adoption statistics and calls to action. As viewers, we get a quick glimpse of the emotional peaks and valleys of the adoption process in an easily digestible format that gels with a social media timeline environment.

Designed to speak to prospective adopting families, the pieces are moving and resonate by using a “Show, don’t tell” approach in its messaging.

Every kid deserves a family! Watch our new video: https://t.co/OldmzcazAi#FamilyIS pic.twitter.com/qtQJpuCE2Q

— Nat. Adoption Center (@NatAdoptCenter) October 3, 2016

Supplemented by the NAC’s #FamilyIs hashtag, this social ad direction successfully harnesses the NAC’s core, evergreen values. Hochman says these spots are one new piece to the NAC embracing a digital direction in its communication strategy.

“The Center has an active Facebook page, uses Twitter extensively and publishes digital content on its YouTube channel frequently,” she says. “Its online site, AdoptSpeak, gives those interested in adoption the opportunity to chat and exchange ideas.  Its online listing of adoption agencies, AdoptMatch, allows prospective adopters to “match” themselves with an agency that feels like a good fit.”

Hochman hopes that with these digital resources, combined with strategically conceived ad content and accompanying advertising directions, that the NAC can maintain its role as a compassionate community member by reaching its audience in as many ways as possible.

“It’s mandatory to tell your story through blogs, videos, and infographics,” says Beck. “And the options are only growing.”

“Millions of people rely on digital communications for their news and for exchanging their thoughts,” Hochman says. So why rely solely on fliers and knocking on doors?

We’ll be sharing the National Adoption Center’s social ads here periodically. Watch the first ad below.