Case studies: Two fundraising campaigns 3 months apart (500 new regular donors during the first one + 600 during end of year campaign)

End of year campaign's overview can be found in the end of the case study.


If you have any questions about information in this site, contact Akvile Jureviciute (head of fundraising at Tusti narvai, Lithuania) akvile@tustinarvai.lt

 
Fundraising framework concept by Jiri Krupa at https://krupajiri.org/ If you have questions regarding the fundraising strategy and tools, contact  jiri.krupa.kfp@gmail.com 



Introduction (where we were and where we are now)

In Tušti narvai we started doing year end fundraising campaigns (with the frameworks described in these case studies) in 2019 and we are very happy that we continuing to do them every year.

Absolute majority of our regular donors come from year end campaigns and repeating them year after year is making us grow faster and faster.


Overview of the first campaign

The landing page (in case the link is not working)

Sources of all regular donations

What tools / trics did we use:

✅ Collected only regular donations and did not mention the option for a one-time donation.

✅ The landing page and emails were supporter-focused (we knew people already know that animals suffer, so we did not focus on showing their suffering or on education. Instead, we empowered supporters by showing them they had the tools to help).

✅ Paused other communications on all channels.

✅ Launched the campaign to our closest supporters first and made it public after 8 days.

✅ Extended the final deadline by two more days.

✅ Used phases.

✅ Kept the main goal to ourselves but shared smaller goals (usually increasing by 25 donors. Initially, the public goal was 25, then 50, 75, 100, 125, and so on).

✅ Focused on communicating that the campaign was successful.

✅ Emphasized the urgency of the campaign.

✅ Tracked the sources of all donations, allowing us to see in real-time what was working and what wasn't.

✅ Spent money on ads.

✅ Called people who clicked on the emails but did not make a donation.


What we didn’t do, but should have:

❗ Asked current regular donors to upgrade their donations.

❗ Tried to secure a donation from a major donor to create a matching donation opportunity.

Reasons of success

In short, during this campaign we:

1. First launching the campaign to closest supporters

We initially launched the campaign to our most engaged audience of 29K people, including former regular donors, one-time donors from the past year, and petition signers. 

We lauched the campaign to close supporters by sending out two emails in which we asked them to not only donate, but also let us know if the website worked okay and their experience was smooth. 38 supporters became regular donors after this CTA. (email "Confidential: Join and write your opinion")

Made the campaign public after 8 days. 

This approach allowed us to create a sense of urgency midway through the campaign, boosting engagement. During this phase, 118 people became regular donors. 

Notably, 44 of them became regular donors after receiving the final two emails emphasizing the limited time left before the campaign went public (email "Less than 37 hours left. Join", email "Less than 13 hours left. A big team is waiting for you").


2. Using "phases" 

During this campaign we broke down the goal to smaller phases and comunicated about them in emails.

These were the phases:
1. Raising funds for public involvement and awareness raising (email about this phase)
2. Raising funds for legal aid for four years - for the entire term of the new Parliament (email about this phase)
3. Fundraising for the creation of a website - a tool to help animals (email about this phase)
4. Fundraising for volunteer mobilisation (email about this phase)
5. Fundraising for the involvement of scientists and experts (email about this phase)
6. Fundraising for events, actions and protests in front of responsible institutions (email about this phase)

Doing this created more opportunities to communicate the urgency and the success of the campaign. This also let us break down the goal into smaller more achievable-looking milestones.

3. Investing in META ads + testing different types of ads

We spent €7.7K on Meta ads and got 66 new regular donors. Each donor cost us €117, with an average monthly donation of €9.3, which was fine since we planned to spend 10-12 months’ worth of average regular donations to bring in donor (12 x average regular donation =  how much we could spend for 1 regular donor)

The main goal was to figure out which types of ads worked best, so we tested regular ads, carousels, and video ads. You can check out the best-performing ads at the end of this page.

4. Extending the final deadline by 2 days

After the campaign officially ended, we sent out an email announcing that we were extending the deadline to give those who hadn't joined yet another chance to do so. We followed up with one more email to everyone who wasn’t already a regular donor. This move brought in 45 new regular donors. (Email "A short message for you", Email "Last letter to you")

5. Strongly and consistantly emphasing the campaigns success

Durring this campaign we used every opportunity we could think of to tell people how successful the campaign is. (email "I can't believe it. Please help animals as well", email "Regarding your actions", email "I did not expect to write you another letter", )

6. Sending 21 emails in 24 days (15 of these were sent to all contacts who did not take action)

During this campaign we decided to not hold back when it comes to how many emails we want to send out. Most of the time we did not segment the recepients into smaller groups. Sending 21 emails got us 321 regular donors. Best performing letters can be seen at the end of this page.

7. Calling supporters who clicked on the links in emails

Calling people who clicked on the emails got us 29 donors (24 % of people who picked up became regular donors). 

8. Proactively making sure that the team would be excited  

This was just as important as every other point. In the office (and online when we couldn’t be together), we had progress counters with daily goals clearly written down. The person responsible for getting the new donation—whether it was a telefundraiser, social media manager, or copywriter—would color in the progress counters. We also made sure to celebrate a lot and went the extra mile to keep the campaign fun and engaging for everyone involved.

We even did this when we could not be in the office.

Daily reporting: How do we know what worked?

You can find the information we track and how we register progress day by day here. 

We track this data using UTM parameters, assigning them to every single piece of content—even our telefundraisers have their own UTM codes. This allows us to pinpoint which donations come from specific sources, enabling us to manage the campaign effectively based on real-time insights. 

Additionally, we use the analytics tool Matomo to monitor website visits, donation button clicks, and all traffic sources.

Resources


💰💰💰  Best performing emails before the campaign went public: 


💰💰💰 Best performing emails after the campaign went public:


👎👎👎 Worst performing email:

 [INVITATION TO YOU] Please join 3 donors (the email is too chaotic, not clear, not exciting enough. Compare it with way more successful lauch email sent closest supporters, you will see the difference)


💰💰💰 Best performing ads:


👎👎👎 Worst performing ads:

Carousel ad 1 donor

Ordinary ad 2 donors

Ordinary ad 2 donors


💰💰💰 Best performing post:

Text post 9 donors


👎👎👎Wost performing post:

Photo post 1 donor



+ all emails results

END OF YEAR FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN

The end of summer fundraising campaign (described above) was repeated 3 months later with the same message. 


It was repeated because: 


It was a success and we got even more regular donors than we did during the first campaign.

Overview 

The landing page (in case the link is not working)

Sources of all regular donations

Timeline

Brief of the Campaign:

✅ Followed all the things already mentioned for the end of summer campaign.
✅ Sent even more emails - 34 emails were sent in 25 days (compared to 21 emails for 24 days previously).
✅ Asked current regular donors to upgrade (increase) their donations.
✅ Secured a donation from a major donor to create a matching donation opportunity.

What did we do:

✅ Followed all the things already mentioned for the end of summer campaign.
✅ Sent even more emails - 34 emails were sent in 25 days (compared to 21 emails for 24 days previously).
✅ Asked current regular donors to upgrade (increase) their donations.
✅ Secured a donation from a major donor to create a matching donation opportunity.
✅ Set daily goals and measured the performance related to them

Daily goals and performance

Resources


💰💰💰  Best performing emails (before donation matching): 


💰💰💰 Best performing emails (after donation matching):


👎👎👎 Worst performing emails:


💰💰💰 Best performing ads BEFORE donation matching:

💰💰💰 Best performing ads AFTER donation matching:


💲💲💲 Cheapest ads:


💰💰💰 Best performing post:

Facebook post. 5 donors


+ all emails results