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Year End Donations Fund Running Water
Case STUDY
Remarkable Donor Journey
Creating a place of self-discovery for brilliant and resilient young people moving through and beyond homelessness.
The Challenge
United Way of Greater Cincinnati (UWGC) is dedicated to helping families flourish. Guided by community voices and data-driven strategies, UWGC unites diverse stakeholders comprised of individuals and organizations to address issues holistically.
Their approach is multifaceted, encompassing proactive interventions, advocacy, and investment across three key pillars: educational advancement, financial resilience, and housing stability.
For decades, workplace or employee giving brought in more than 90 percent of UWGC’s annual revenue. However, post-Covid years saw a steep decline in funding, exposing a need for diversified revenue streams and greater donation opportunities.
Additionally, UWGC was looking to strengthen its relationship with Workplace Corporate Partners (large business entities whose employees are the workplace donors), but was unsure where to begin.
Their challenges prompted them to connect with CauseMic, seeking answers to questions like:
- How can we diversify our revenue streams?
- How do we develop a more unified message that can be leveraged across our fundraising campaigns?
- How can we inspire and build trust with our existing donor base to increase their investment through annual and monthly giving
- How can we improve ties with our Workplace Corporate Partners?
Our Solution
To answer UWGC’s questions and address their challenges:
- We analyzed UWGC’s existing donor base—specifically donation frequency, level of giving, and affiliation parameters—to identify fundraising audiences for annual and monthly giving outside of workplace donors.
- We conducted interviews with numerous UWGC philanthropic partners to determine opportunity gaps and any friction hindering more fruitful engagement. We found a notable lack of understanding regarding the exact nature of UWGC’s work, highlighting a need to clearly convey their efforts. Information materials were required to effectively communicate UWGC campaigns to employees and others.
- We worked with UWGC to clearly define their unique value proposition to help clarify and distinguish their work for current and prospective supporters. This centered on their holistic approach toward addressing financial, educational, and housing issues to help families within the Greater Cincinnati area thrive.
- For a more cohesive donor experience, we developed a comprehensive content planner and strategy calendar across UWGC’s campaigns. Content themes were rooted in UWGC’s newly defined value proposition and addressed their three core pillars.
- To expand fundraising beyond workplace giving, we determined opportunities for donors to give directly to UWGC by creating easy-to-understand appeals and plain-speak messaging.
The Results
- United Way of Greater Cincinnati now had a clearly actionable plan to diversify their revenue streams for workplace giving and beyond, including new strategies to build out their annual and monthly giving programs.
- Along with insights from CauseMic-conducted partner interviews, UWGC utilized our research and analysis to cultivate solid relationships with existing and future Workplace Corporate Partners.
The Challenge
Based in Portland, p:ear is a transformative nonprofit that builds positive relationships with homeless youth through education, art, recreation, and job training.
Their mission affirms the personal worth of young people, helping them envision and build brighter futures despite challenging circumstances. They do so by fostering a creative community based on love, trust, and belonging, as well as providing essential support services and mentorship.
Despite their urgent, impactful work, p:ear faced two significant fundraising challenges. First, they lacked a strategic plan to connect meaningfully with high-net-worth individuals on Portland's West Side, their primary strategic audience.
Second, in attempting to showcase their diverse programs and services, p:ear's value proposition became overly complex, diminishing its appeal to major donors. This complexity hindered their ability to effectively communicate what sets p:ear apart from other nonprofits working to solve homelessness in Portland to prospective supporters.
p:ear then reached out to CauseMic with four key questions:
- What specific steps should we take to create the best mid- and major donor giving experience in Portland?
- How can we connect with major donors in a memorable way throughout the year?
- How can we organize our small but mighty team to take an annual major donor engagement strategy from ideation to execution?
- What are the most appealing, exclusive, credible, and clear aspects of our work that should be highlighted in our value proposition to resonate with major donors?
Our Solutions
Transformative Touchpoints
CauseMic facilitated a Remarkable Donor Journey workshop, enabling the p:ear team to collectively brainstorm and align on five noteworthy touchpoints to engage major donors throughout the year.
Who’s Who at p:ear
CauseMic then led the p:ear team through an exercise where they identified the key dependencies for each touchpoint and determined who would be responsible for each task.
What to Say and How
CauseMic conducted a collaborative Value Proposition workshop, guiding the p:ear team to identify and align on the most critical, compelling, and unique aspects of their work.
The Results
- Using remarkable touchpoints that highlight their uniqueness, p:ear developed its first annual major donor engagement strategy for building deep relationships with this key audience segment. Balancing the impact and effort of fundraising initiatives, the engagement strategy will help p:ear allocate their limited time and energy to achieve their fundraising goals.
- p:ear now has a tactical, time-bound project plan for executing each touchpoint of the major donor engagement strategy. This will greatly improve project management across the team and help them move beyond ideation to execution.
- p:ear’s now clear, powerful value proposition cuts through the clutter to communicate the most compelling aspects of their work, differentiating them from other organizations also engaged in solving youth homelessness in Portland. And it does so in a way that speaks to the donor’s head—and their heart.
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Fundraising that makes a real difference
Regardless of your funding challenge, you can count on CauseMic for an exceptional solution. Limited capacity, low monthly donations, and timid year-end results are but a few issues we’re ready to tackle for you. And now is a great time to get started!
