How Do You Launch A Crowdfunding Campaign That Actually Hits Its Goal? 

The Challenge

A social enterprise with an established support base, board of directors, and thriving program was seeking our help in increasing its fundraising capacity in Q4 through a crowdfunding campaign. Although the organization had an established group of donors after being in operation for 3 years, it was hitting a slump in its financial growth. 

 

Key Discoveries

During a deep analysis of the organization's past donor lists, giving trends, and fundraising financials, it became clear that the organization's largest problem was its inability to reactivate past donors into reoccurring donors. 

The organization was sitting on a large pool of donors with a high propensity to give (based on public data), but it was clear in the numbers that they were not being reactivated properly. Instead of offering a solution to find new donors through a crowdfunding campaign, we recommended reinvigorating existing donors to help meet the crowdfunding campaign's goal. We recommended this approach because reengaging existing donors is a core element of sustainable organizations. If you aren't able to reengage your existing donors, then finding new donors will only be a temporary solution to your financial growth problems. Our strategy was to remedy the weak foundations in the organization's donor engagement strategy first, so that new donors wouldn't fall into the same bucket in the future. 

We provided leadership coaching for the organization's CEO to restructure expectations, and to create new policies for its board of directors with the goal of boosting their fundraising capacity. We merged this strategy with the organization's crowdfunding campaign plan, which reinvigorated existing donors by asking them to fundraise, or to donate to the organization again through a targeted, specific ask. The execution of this plan resulted with a 40% increase in the organization's Q4 revenue, which became the organization's highest grossing revenue month. 

 

Deliverables

  • Crowdfunding Campaign Execution
  • Fundraising Strategy & Plan 
  • Strategic Problem Solving For Scale And Financial Roadblocks
  • Leadership & Startup Coaching 
  • Board of Directors Development

 

All identifying information about the startups presented in the case studies above have been removed to honor non-disclosure agreements between Ascent Strategy and its clients.