We’re all trying to appeal to extra donations to impression change in our communities – So how did the Ben Carlson Basis improve donations over the previous 12 months to gas their mighty trigger?
Based in 2014, the Ben Carlson Basis was created to honor the heroic legacy of Ben Carlson, a lifeguard who selflessly sacrificed his life to rescue a swimmer in Newport Seashore, California. Established in his reminiscence, the Basis supplies annual scholarships to student-athletes and works to enhance ocean security measures to guard lifeguards and most of the people domestically and internationally.
Mightycause actually did assist us with our peer-to-peer fundraising and I’ll use it time and again and once more not just for Ben Carlson Basis but in addition for another organizations.
Ben Did Go occasion
For the previous 8 years, the Ben Carlson Basis has hosted an annual paddle-out occasion, “Ben Did Go.” Ben Did Go is an unbelievable athletic occasion the place over 110 members endure a 30-mile susceptible paddle throughout the Catalina Channel from Avalon to Newport Seashore. Participant paddlers are inspired and challenged to boost a minimal of $1,500.
In 2023, the Ben Carlson crew introduced on board Kaity Van Amersfort, the CEO of C&R Administration, an affiliation administration agency that helps successfully handle occasion planning, membership, administration, and funds for nonprofits. Tasked with making their eighth anniversary the very best one but, Kaity knew that increasing their peer-to-peer efforts to a devoted peer-to-peer on-line platform would vastly streamline their occasion. That’s once they discovered Mightycause.
The Ben Carlson crew turned to Mightycause’s peer-to-peer fundraising pages and fundraiser templates to create a simple and simplified approach for members to create and share their very own fundraising pages. Study how the Ben Carlson Basis was capable of obtain a 74% improve in donations:
What was the principle problem you confronted that led you to Mightycause?
We used GoFundMe, they’re really a extremely nice platform, individuals do fabulous issues on it. Pertaining to our paddle although, there have been just some issues that we couldn’t do, we couldn’t monitor the progress of particular person paddlers and to take part on this paddle there’s a advised donation of $1,500 that paddlers are requested to boost. So once I got here on board with Ben Carlson Basis (BCF) virtually a 12 months in the past and we had been speaking concerning the paddle and a number of the challenges we needed to try to improve donations – we talked about fundraising and I mentioned “nicely we might discover some peer-to-peer fundraising platforms that we might use as a substitute of GoFundMe.”
After we began going forwards and backwards with the Mightycause crew, they actually helped me perceive that the platform would assist us in having the ability to see what particular person paddlers had been elevating and giving them a template to have the ability to share the data. Beforehand, we might by no means bodily see how a lot cash every paddler was elevating. We get 1000’s of donations. So it might be unattainable to have anyone say “yep, right here’s all my tracked 237 donations that I bought.”
So throughout the Mightycause platform clearly we might actually observe {that a} bit higher. The cool factor about Mightycause is, we as a company, might share their pages, or different individuals on the board might share their pages. So there was far more alternative to have the ability to enhance fundraising in some capability by utilizing this platform.
What had been the important thing components that influenced your resolution to decide on Mightycause?
The flexibility to share the pages individually and create customized templates. All of our paddlers, whereas they’re tremendous keen about this venture, didn’t all really know Ben personally. Having the ability to give them the instruments to jot down a narrative about why they’re doing this was key to enabling donors to extend donations. In any other case they had been taking the outdated web page and simply sharing it and saying, “Hey I’m taking part on this paddle, give me cash.”
Inside these instruments I might actually arrange some templates that shared the story about Ben that they might use that bought far more particular on why individuals ought to donate to this trigger. Additionally simply the simple entry of having the ability to take a hyperlink and put it on their very own web page. The benefit of use on this was very nice.
The backend platform from an admin perspective was additionally very nice. Tremendous straightforward instruments to make use of. I additionally bought some good takeaways from a number of the webinars that I participated in and the assist crew was very aware of me. So it was good to have some on the bottom assist that I don’t assume we had with GoFundMe earlier than.
What had been your objectives to your fundraising marketing campaign?
The objective was $150,000 and we clearly blew that out of the water. And it simply stored rising, and that’s a tribute and testomony to our individuals who consider on this trigger a lot, there’s little doubt…but I additionally assume the truth that we had a software that was simply a lot simpler and higher to make use of than we beforehand had helped us recover from that bump too.
When we reached $150,000 our chairperson mentioned, “$150,00 is sweet, we’re bought!” However some individuals on the board had been like, “oh let’s go to $175,000, we will get it” whereas others thought “I don’t know, $175,000, we’re not gonna make it.” Then we bought to $175,000 and other people had been like, “oh my god, we bought to $175,000, let’s preserve going, we’ll make the objective $200,000.” However others mentioned, “No, no, we’re good. We’ll preserve it right here. We’re not gonna get to $200,000, we will’t increase $200,000.” Then we bought to $200,000. And after that, I don’t assume anyone had any extra dialogue about it as a result of we simply went approach over what we thought we had been going to get for this explicit 12 months.
May you share somewhat bit about your implementation means of utilizing Mightycause for the primary time to your occasion?
I’d say I’m considerably accustomed to some fundraising nonprofit administration softwares as a result of I do work with another purchasers. So I’ve used another platforms and they are often actually tough to work with, I’m simply gonna be sincere. They’re actually tough, it’s not straightforward. Another platforms are perhaps not arrange particularly for these fundraising capabilities, though they do strive promote you on that.
However with Mightycause, it was actually the convenience of use on the backend, having the ability to create completely different templates for individuals to make use of, letting individuals create their very own in the event that they wished to. So we weren’t forcing them to make use of something. They’d an choice of utilizing a template or they might create their very own story.
The truth that you possibly can simply share it to social media channels actually helped. We now have a ton of younger individuals who participated. So if we didn’t have that, I’m undecided we’d’ve had as broad of a attain.
After which I’d say, implementation-wise, I bought a number of assist on the backend from the assist crew and I watched a number of Mightycause webinars. I feel there are some actually nice movies and different assets out there by way of Mightycause. At no level did I ever really feel like I didn’t have the assist that I wanted to ensure that paddlers had been profitable of their fundraising efforts. It was fairly seamless. I even really used Mightycause for an additional group after and we form of modified what had been making an attempt to take action it was somewhat bit completely different. However anyway, I had such an excellent expertise with Mightycause and the whole lot that went together with it.
Was there something stunning that took place from this 12 months’s marketing campaign?
Actually, I didn’t assume we’d recover from $200,000 however throughout the final two years, the group itself has had some actually optimistic momentum in creating some extra substantial committees. And so there was a particular committee that I feel they could have met just a few extra instances and we perhaps strategized somewhat bit extra on how we had been gonna get the phrase out for the actual occasion in hopes of extra donations.
However the board additionally has had some technique on another matters that we had. However over the previous two years, creating some strategic committees throughout the group has made the group higher. As a result of everyone is aware of what their job is or what their volunteer job is. Everyone is aware of what they need to be doing. We form of know the initiatives. And so when you may have board members who’re able to make an impression, the factor you wanna do is give them a software that works. So in having the ability to use Mightycause, or different software program that makes their job simpler, I at all times wish to say “Use me as a software to your success. What can I do to make you extra profitable as a board member and lead us to extra donations?”
What was the response out of your board?
They had been blissful. I feel that they had been excited that we had a software that would actually give us some extra key efficiency indicators, that means we might see what everyone was fundraising and once more having the ability to simply share a hyperlink on many various platforms. They may textual content it, ship it in their very own e mail, that form of factor. So I feel everyone was very excited on the alternative to get to be extra seen on this fundraising. So we at all times knew like, “yay we raised $125,000,” that’s nonetheless a feat and a tremendous proper in itself. However the truth that we simply had extra visibility on the inside workings of that, what it seemed like and ease of use actually, I’d say, fueled the rise in donations and glad the board with this explicit occasion.
Is there anything you wished to share about your total expertise with Mightycause?
We’re inundated with know-how instruments to make use of which might be purported to make our lives simpler and that’s not at all times the case. However I’ll say on this regard, Mightycause actually did assist us with our peer-to-peer fundraising and I’ll use it time and again and once more not just for Ben Carlson Basis but in addition for another organizations.
The truth that on the backend it’s straightforward to make use of for an administrative individual like me who wants to have the ability to set issues up rapidly and make it very straightforward for others to make use of is simply so important. If it’s making my life tougher, I’m in all probability not gonna put money into it. I want instruments that my volunteers and boards can use which might be environment friendly, quick, and simple to make use of, and undoubtedly Mightycause it suits that mildew.
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