Case Study
Fundraising Without Limits: How to Drive Growth Within a Regional Market
Like many non-profits, Ronald McDonald House New York traditionally centered their fundraising program around direct mail and in-person events. But as mail costs climbed and the pandemic brought event fundraising to a halt, that approach became harder to sustain. Determined to grow and stay innovative, Ronald McDonald House New York made the decision to invest in a Digital fundraising program.
Client
Ronald McDonald House of New York
Program
Regional Programs
Non-Profit Category
Health
The Challenge
Like many non-profits, Ronald McDonald House New York traditionally centered their fundraising program around direct mail and in-person events. But as mail costs climbed and the pandemic brought event fundraising to a halt, that approach became harder to sustain. Determined to grow and stay innovative, Ronald McDonald House New York made the decision to invest in a Digital fundraising program.
There was just one catch: The House could only solicit gifts within the NYC metro area. That meant every dollar raised, every donor acquired, would have to come from a tight and competitive geographic footprint. Further was brought in to help kickstart this program and our objective was clear: build an aggressive digital growth plan that accelerates new donor acquisition and delivers sustained revenue over a three-year period – all within New York City.
The Strategy
To start, we leaned heavily into Paid Search and Performance Max to reach high-intent audiences who were ready to give. Targeting was restricted to New York City to align with business rules, but as we gained traction, we introduced additional ad channels like Paid Social, Video, Display, and DOOH to build a large pipeline of qualified prospects. With an eye on short-term impact and long-term stability, we launched a mix of one-time and sustainer-first campaigns to maximize immediate revenue and build an income stream that would compound in Years 2, 3, and beyond.
As site traffic grew with increased digital presence, we focused on optimizing The House’s website and donation forms. We ran continuous tests to improve conversion rates and developed fundraising-first drilldown pages to turn clicks into dedicated supporters.
We didn’t stop with investing in new donor acquisition. In lockstep, we collaborated with The House’s Email team to develop a segmentation strategy based on response data from Ads. From there we added SMS as an additional fundraising touchpoint in Year 2, further bolstering the retention of newly acquired donors. As we scaled the program we supported The House’s Data Analytics team in advanced reporting to measure retention rates and the programs impact on Major Giving.
The Results
The campaign successfully grew both 1x new donors and new sustainers as well as generating hundreds of major giving prospects, as verified by the client.
Increase in digital revenue from Year 1 to Year 3
Increase in new digital donors from Year 1 to Year 3
More new sustainers acquired in Year 1 than projected, resulting in 215% more recurring sustainer revenue from Year 2 to Year 3
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