Year End Donations Fund Running Water
Case Study
Year-End Fundraising
Promoting the use of Transcendental Meditation to reduce stress and improve well-being, particularly among at-risk populations.
The Challenge
Using Transcendental Meditation (TM) programs, the David Lynch Foundation (DLF) works to prevent and eradicate trauma and toxic stress among at-risk populations like veterans and survivors of domestic violence or sexual assault.
Plus, pointing to staunch support of TM benefits from the American Heart Association, celebrities, and others, DLF also seeks to teach TM to children and adults anywhere in the world who want to experience its beneficial effects.
Like most nonprofits, end-of-year funding is essential for DLF to not only continue but to scale its mission-driven efforts. However, they ran into capacity constraints in October that hindered their email strategy and execution for November and December.
This impacted fundraising historically driven by the voices of key DLF leaders. Therefore, ghostwriting support was needed to ensure timely development of email communications, particularly for November with its lead-in to Giving Tuesday.
So when CauseMic was brought in, we needed to address three specific DLF questions:
- How should we segment our audiences?
- What should we be saying, plus when and how should we say it?
- How can we optimize the online donation experience?
Our Solution
To bridge DLF’s capacity constraints and jump-start their year-end giving:
- We introduced a new email tool (GMass) and recommended a particular approach for each message (e.g., designed email vs. plain-text, etc.)
- In partnership with DLF, we developed an email communications calendar that identified different messages with which their various audiences would resonate.
- We helped select the messages that should come from key DLF leaders, celebrity influencers, or the organization itself to drive revenue.
- We wrote and designed 13 emails to tell their story, each asking for financial contributions to continue and expand those efforts.
The Results
DLF experienced some of the highest fundraising results in their history.
Our Giving Tuesday efforts helped DLF hit their entire fundraising goal through the end of January 2024.
DLF’s partnership with CauseMic allowed them quick development of communications, creating capacity for their staff to focus attention on other high-impact efforts best suited for their team to lead.
How we can help you maximize year-end fundraising
Whether year-end or year-round, successful fundraising campaigns start with an actionable plan. Using our proven framework, we can help plan and execute yours!
