How one nonprofit raised $30,000+ with an online campaign | A case study | The Tender Foundation
You know how I teach about finding your ideal donor - they very right person, with the very right vibe, who is exactly who you want to be giving to your organization?
Well I have ideal clients and for me - that is Tender.
The Tender Foundation came to me out of the sky. I think via Pinterest or Instagram, Jaycina the founder, found me. For that happy accident I’ll always be grateful, but it just goes to show that the work you are putting in now, might not pay off immediately.
Launching in January 2020, The Tender Foundation was started to help mothers, many of whom are single, with basic supports like rental assistance, grocery assistance, utility assistance and diaper delivery. Jaycina the founder always says, “I can’t imagine trying to parent from a place of survival,” and so, she created an organization that works to take off the heavy burden that so often falls on the plates of mothers.
Out of the gate, she raised $20,000 which is what she used to start putting her program to work.
Five months later - she came to me wanting to raise her next $20,000 but not sure how to do it.
We decided on a campaign - a fundraising strategy that could be held online and with people all across the world. Here, we would utilize her email list and social following to raise money.
The problem was: she had an email list of only 240 people and a social following of about 2k - we had to grow both of those while simultaneously providing value to her current audience.
So - we got to work. Here is what we did:
Tender started consistently engaging her donor audience through communication. She picked a cadence - 1 email every other week + social posts 3x per week. The content was a mix of five pillars: statistics, inspo, storytelling, behind the scenes, and other. On days when an email was sent - similar content related to the email was posted on social the same day to give it that one-two punch effect.
Tender recruited a silent partner. Here the goal was to raise 25% of the overall goal before the campaign launched to the public. For Tender, that meant $5,000 - more than they had ever received at one time from a single donor. We brainstormed a list of 10+ brands that Jaycina had a relationship with and she went down the list one-by-one. Truthfully, it took a few asks to get a bite, but she did it and Coterie, a diaper brand dedicated to making parenthood easy, was the perfect fit.
Tender recruited peer-fundraisers. Because of their small email list size, social following and board of directors, Tender needed to expand their asks beyond their current network. Jaycina put together a simple toolkit with talking points and social templates and then invited people to be peer-fundraisers. These were mostly people who had expressed an interest in volunteering or had been followers/champions since the beginning. She reached out individually with a simple ask and ended up recruiting 23 peer-fundraisers.
Shared social proof. One of the exercises I did with Tender is figure out who their ideal donor is. What came up was a mom. From there, I taught Tender that with women especially, social proof really matters. Therefore, every single time someone posted about Tender and tagged the organization - Tender re-shared it. This not only got new eyes on the organization, but it made it seem like all these other people were talking about the organization: social credibility. That turned into more followers, more people engaging with their posts and more people becoming champions.
They kept asking. That’s right. Even once they hit their $20k goal - they didn’t stop there. They pushed to their next goal of $30,000 and continued to email, post and social share until the finish line. The result? An additional $10k+ in donations!
Through a lot of hard work, and by following my roadmap for success, in about 3 months, Tender saw the following:
A increase in about 300 email subscribers
An increase in 2,500 followers on Instagram
Their first $5,000 donor
2 new board members
$30,000+ raised in 10 days
370 new donors
That my friends, is what we call a success with a capital “S”.
If you want to learn the tools and roadmap that Jaycine and The Tender Foundation put to work to make their online fundraising campaign wildly successful, then sign up for my free 5 Day Challenge: Zero to Launch Your Epic End-of-Year Appeal. The fun begins Tuesday, September 8th!