Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — Film-to-Movement Content Model

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded a feature-length documentary exploring systemic racism in healthcare — focusing on the experiences of nurses of color in a profession where 80% identify as white. Chad Tingle, RiseWorks co-founder and CCO, directed the film, traveling the country from 2022 to 2024 conducting 2–3 hour interviews with nurses nationwide.

The challenge: transform a single documentary into a sustained movement that would reach nursing institutions and healthcare organizations at scale — and ensure nothing from those hundreds of hours of interviews died on the hard drive.

Chad and the SHIFT team designed a content-to-movement strategy that treated one documentary as source material for an entire ecosystem. The "Diamond Strategy" turned a single film into 57+ distinct content assets — 15 nurse profiles, 13 themed extended discussions, short social clips, and educational guides — each tailored to specific audience segments across academia, the workplace, and institutional leadership.

A "Screening-in-a-Box" distribution model gave any institution a self-service toolkit to host events with a password-protected link, screening kit, and run-of-show guide — removing every barrier to adoption. The film was free to anyone who didn't charge admission.

Outtakes from each multi-hour interview were systematically repurposed into months of social content, a podcast, and professional training modules. Three distinct activation tracks were built for faculty, nurse managers, and professional associations — converting one film into three products for three buyer personas.

The film premiered during Nurses Week 2024 and achieved extraordinary scale: over 300,000 screenings in two years, with roughly 3,000 institutions and 324 nursing schools — about 13% of all U.S. nursing programs — requesting access, including Emory, Duke, UPenn, Columbia, and UC Davis.

Post-screening surveys (n=3,200) showed 97% of viewers learned new strategies for overcoming barriers, 95% believe every nurse should see the film, and 93% said it would change how they approach their work. The University of Miami School of Nursing integrated the film into its curriculum.

Social media grew +240% in followers with 204,000 impressions in two weeks and a 2.4% sustained engagement rate. The trailer alone reached 215,000+ people with 15,500+ clicks. Endorsements came from the National Black Nurses Association, Stanford Health Care, CDC, and the American Academy of Nursing.