Gratitude Diaries Cultural Book and Multimedia Engagement

This project is intended to increase awareness of, appreciation for, and adoption of the virtue of gratitude. Under the auspices of the Institute of International Education (IIE), Janice Kaplan will keep a yearlong diary in which she regularly records her efforts to live with what Sir John Templeton refers to as “an attitude of gratitude.” Through a coordinated multimedia campaign, Kaplan’s diary will be shared with a broad section of the culture at large. Specifically, Kaplan’s diary will (a) be published online in regular installments on a blog associated with a pre-existing web property owned by a major media outlet; (b) be integrated into an online platform allowing readers to create and share online video gratitude diaries; and (c) be published by a national publishing house. As a result of these activities, we expect to (a) attract a monthly average of at least 50,000 unique visitors (with 200,000 page views), (b) host at least 25,000 online video gratitude diaries, and (c) publish The Gratitude Diaries: How a Year of Living Gratefully Made Me Happier, Healthier, and Wiser, with anticipated sales of 100,000 books and extensive media coverage in print, radio, television, and the internet. The goal is to awaken readers and viewers to the benefit of bringing gratitude into their daily lives, and drive them to action with the creation of video journals and personal gratitude diaries. It intends to generate broad enthusiasm and to inspire millions of Americans to make gratitude into a daily habit—into, that is, developing an “attitude of gratitude.” To measure impact, a two-tiered survey will be implemented – the user survey will reach the readers of the book as well as the online audience of the blog and the video diaries and the national survey will measure change in gratitude for a representative sample of Americans using as a baseline Kaplan’s 2012 Edelman/Berland survey results.