We’re all trying to appeal to extra donations to affect change in our communities – So how did the Ben Carlson Basis enhance donations over the previous 12 months to gasoline 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 Seaside, California. Established in his reminiscence, the Basis offers annual scholarships to student-athletes and works to enhance ocean security measures to guard lifeguards and most people regionally and internationally.
Mightycause actually did assist us with our peer-to-peer fundraising and I’ll use it repeatedly 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 unimaginable athletic occasion the place over 110 contributors endure a 30-mile inclined paddle throughout the Catalina Channel from Avalon to Newport Seaside. Participant paddlers are inspired and challenged to lift a minimal of $1,500.
In 2023, the Ben Carlson workforce 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 enormously streamline their occasion. That’s once they discovered Mightycause.
The Ben Carlson workforce turned to Mightycause’s peer-to-peer fundraising pages and fundraiser templates to create a simple and simplified approach for contributors to create and share their very own fundraising pages. Study how the Ben Carlson Basis was capable of obtain a 74% enhance in donations:
What was the primary problem you confronted that led you to Mightycause?
We used GoFundMe, they’re really a extremely nice platform, folks 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 recommended donation of $1,500 that paddlers are requested to lift. So after I got here on board with Ben Carlson Basis (BCF) nearly a 12 months in the past and we have been speaking concerning the paddle and among the challenges we needed to attempt to enhance 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.”
Once we began going backwards and forwards with the Mightycause workforce, they actually helped me perceive that the platform would assist us in with the ability to see what particular person paddlers have been elevating and giving them a template to have the ability to share the knowledge. Beforehand, we might by no means bodily see how a lot cash every paddler was elevating. We get 1000’s of donations. So it could be inconceivable to have anyone say “yep, right here’s all my tracked 237 donations that I acquired.”
So inside the Mightycause platform clearly we might actually monitor {that a} bit higher. The cool factor about Mightycause is, we as a company, might share their pages, or different folks 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 have been the important thing elements that influenced your resolution to decide on Mightycause?
The power 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. With the ability to give them the instruments to write down a narrative about why they’re doing this was key to enabling donors to extend donations. In any other case they have been taking the previous web page and simply sharing it and saying, “Hey I’m collaborating on this paddle, give me cash.”
Inside these instruments I might actually arrange some templates that shared the story about Ben that they may use that acquired far more particular on why folks ought to donate to this trigger. Additionally simply the straightforward entry of with the ability to take a hyperlink and put it on their very own web page. The convenience of use on this was very nice.
The backend platform from an admin perspective was additionally very nice. Tremendous simple instruments to make use of. I additionally acquired some good takeaways from among the webinars that I participated in and the help workforce was very attentive to me. So it was good to have some on the bottom help that I don’t suppose we had with GoFundMe earlier than.
What have been your targets on your fundraising marketing campaign?
The aim 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 imagine on this trigger a lot, there’s little question…but I additionally suppose the truth that we had a instrument 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 offered!” However some folks on the board have been like, “oh let’s go to $175,000, we are able to get it” whereas others thought “I don’t know, $175,000, we’re not gonna make it.” Then we acquired to $175,000 and folks have been like, “oh my god, we acquired to $175,000, let’s maintain going, we’ll make the aim $200,000.” However others mentioned, “No, no, we’re good. We’ll maintain it right here. We’re not gonna get to $200,000, we are able to’t elevate $200,000.” Then we acquired to $200,000. And after that, I don’t suppose anyone had any extra dialogue about it as a result of we simply went approach over what we thought we have been going to get for this specific 12 months.
May you share just a little bit about your implementation strategy of utilizing Mightycause for the primary time on your occasion?
I might 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 simple. Another platforms are possibly 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, with the ability to create completely different templates for folks to make use of, letting folks create their very own in the event that they needed to. So we weren’t forcing them to make use of something. That they had an choice of utilizing a template or they may create their very own story.
The truth that you could possibly simply share it to social media channels definitely helped. We now have a ton of younger individuals who participated. So if we didn’t have that, I’m undecided we might’ve had as broad of a attain.
After which I might say, implementation-wise, I acquired a variety of help on the backend from the help workforce and I watched a variety of Mightycause webinars. I feel there are some actually nice movies and different assets out there by Mightycause. At no level did I ever really feel like I didn’t have the help that I wanted to ensure that paddlers have been profitable of their fundraising efforts. It was fairly seamless. I even really used Mightycause for one more group after and we sort of modified what have been attempting to take action it was just a little bit completely different. However anyway, I had such an important expertise with Mightycause and every part that went together with it.
Was there something stunning that happened from this 12 months’s marketing campaign?
Actually, I didn’t suppose we’d recover from $200,000 however inside the final two years, the group itself has had some actually optimistic momentum in creating some extra substantial committees. And so there was a selected committee that I feel they may have met a couple of extra instances and we possibly strategized just a little bit extra on how we have 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 subjects that we had. However over the previous two years, creating some strategic committees inside the group has made the group higher. As a result of all people is aware of what their job is or what their volunteer job is. Everyone is aware of what they need to be doing. We sort of know the initiatives. And so when you could have board members who’re able to make an affect, the factor you wanna do is give them a instrument that works. So in with the ability to use Mightycause, or different software program that makes their job simpler, I all the time wish to say “Use me as a instrument on 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 have been pleased. I feel that they have been excited that we had a instrument that would actually give us some extra key efficiency indicators, that means we might see what all people was fundraising and once more with the ability to simply share a hyperlink on many alternative platforms. They might textual content it, ship it in their very own e-mail, that sort of factor. So I feel all people was very excited on the alternative to get to be extra seen on this fundraising. So we all the time knew like, “yay we raised $125,000,” that’s nonetheless a feat and an incredible proper in itself. However the truth that we simply had extra visibility on the internal workings of that, what it appeared like and ease of use actually, I might say, fueled the rise in donations and happy the board with this specific occasion.
Is there the rest you needed to share about your general expertise with Mightycause?
We’re inundated with expertise instruments to make use of which are imagined to make our lives simpler and that’s not all the time 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 repeatedly and once more not just for Ben Carlson Basis but in addition for another organizations.
The truth that on the backend it’s simple 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 simple for others to make use of is simply so vital. If it’s making my life more durable, I’m in all probability not gonna spend money on it. I want instruments that my volunteers and boards can use which are environment friendly, quick, and simple to make use of, and undoubtedly Mightycause it suits that mould.
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