Freestore Foodbank – Email Cultivation
Freestore Foodbank distributes 23 million meals annually through a network of 350 community partner agencies serving 20 counties in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. They provide food and services, create stability, and further self-reliance for people in crisis. Looking to take their giving day—Double Your Dollars Day—to the next level, Freestore Foodbank partnered with Charity Dynamics for a plan to better educate and cultivate constituents leading up to the critical fundraising campaign.
Project Details
Client Freestore Foodbank
Skills Strategy, Engagement, Fundraising
Challenge
• Diversify types of messaging throughout the year to balance out solicitations and add value to remaining on email list as a subscriber.
• Better communicate updated statistics and impact with constituents to keep up momentum, energy, and sense of action.
• Lead up to important fundraising asks with timely impact reminders.
Approach
• Map out marketing calendar to visualize all sends throughout the year and where best to fit in new cultivation touch points. Prime times were quiet months that would not overload subscribers but were close enough to a campaign to remind readers of real progress before a fundraising ask.
• Research existing, timely print material that Charity Dynamics could re-imagine and re-purpose online.
• Implement strategic two-part Fall Cultivation series that would educate constituents with a mission reminder (“the why”) and statistics from hunger-fighting programs (“the how”) leading up to a major giving day.
Outcome
• Email openers from the Fall Cultivation series made up 42% of the total amount raised and 35% of the number of gifts made during a record-breaking Double Your Dollars Giving Day campaign.
• Strong year-round cultivation strategy now in place to better inform and include constituents on results and impact.
• Unique long scroll email designs kept Freestore Foodbank at the forefront of industry trends and allowed cultivation messaging to stand out even more, further diversifying emails constituents receive in their inbox.