Introduction:
Our Annual Giving service revolves around story-based, deadline-driven campaigns designed to engage supporters year-round. By emphasizing frequency, consistency, and personalization, we develop and execute four annual campaigns, creating tailored creative assets across digital and print media. Our commitment is to activate donor relationships, inspire broad audiences, and provide the strategic support needed to reinforce these relationships through personalized communication.
Campaign objective:
The primary objective of Girlstart’s 2024 End of Year campaign was to leverage storytelling across multiple channels to increase awareness and secure funding for its STEM programs. By incorporating digital outreach—emails, social media posts, and online ads—alongside a direct mail letter, the campaign focused on the impact of Girlstart on alumnae’s lives like Audrey and Kathryn and highlighted the HEB challenge gift.
The campaign was divided into a cultivation phase followed by a solicitation phase and included the direct mail piece that both celebrated Girlstart’s 2024 achievements and introduced the organization’s vision for 2025. This approach underscored Girlstart’s commitment to providing transformative STEM opportunities for girls and emphasized the critical role of donor support in furthering the organization’s mission.
Campaign timeline:
November 21st - December 10th: Cultivation Emails
December 3, December 12th - December 31st: Solicitation Emails
CAMPAIGN STORY:
We shared the story of sisters who discovered their passion for programming and chemistry through Girlstart’s programs, demonstrating how hands-on STEM experiences, mentorship, and community support foster confidence and career exploration. By focusing on their journeys, the campaign showcased Girlstart’s broader impact in empowering girls to pursue dreams they might not have considered before. Through real-life testimonials and examples, the message highlighted the critical role donor support plays in sustaining and expanding Girlstart’s programming, providing clear opportunities for the community to invest in the future of women in STEM.
Cultivation emails/ Social Posts
We used cultivation emails and social posts to tell people about Audrey and Kathryn’s experience at Girlstart and the impact it had on their future careers in STEM.
solicitation email/Social posts
These emails transitioned from storytelling to direct appeals for donations, including impact messages and examples of how donations ensure the continued impact Girlstart’s programs have on girls.
Campaign Results:
Email Open Rates: The highest open rate was 24.3% for the second to last solicitation email sent on 12/27. Overall the open rates for this campaign were lower than the average of the NTXGD/Fall campaign average (22% from 24%)
This may suggest that segmenting these campaigns to specific email lists may create higher engagement
Email Click-Through Rates: The highest click rate was 4.5% for the same email on 12/27. This campaign's average CTR was 1.6%, effectively half of the last campaign’s average CTR of 3.8%.
Again, this campaign’s average was lower than the prior two, suggesting that segmentation of your large subscriber base might increase these numbers.
Audience Growth: The total audience growth during the campaign was 2.31%.
Instagram followers saw an increase of 3.97% suggesting an active and engaged audience on the platform.
These numbers could be due to the many activities and programs you all had going on in December and the countless marketing efforts you had towards them.
Key takeaways:
Open rates and CTRs were highest in emails sent in the evening (9:00 PM) which suggests that your audience might be more active at these times. An excellent way to test this would be to have A/B tests for the next campaign with further segmentation.
You all have a large list in Mailchimp, but when we send to the entire list, we have low engagement (open, click, etc.) It’s worth considering a massive overhaul/only sending our campaign emails to semi-recent donors and current volunteers.
If the peer-to-peer aspect of Classy is not being used effectively, it might be worth considering nixing it for future campaigns. Right now, when we send a solicitation, we drive people to the main classy campaign page so they have the option to sign up for peer-to-peer fundraising.
For future campaigns, creating a standard giving page and sending people there would reduce the number of clicks and/or distractions available for people.
Find enticing ways to engage board members, committee members, volunteers, etc., to get them excited about the campaigns and more involved.
