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Fundraising, technology & how to win a campaign before it even starts Andrew Murray is the District Attorney in Mecklenburg County, NC. First elected in 2010, he is up for re-election in November. Our parent company, Harrington Forward Thinking (HFT), managed Andrew’s campaign fundraising operation in 2010, and was retained again for the 2014 cycle. Knowing that North Carolina would have a several high profile races in 2014; and a crowded field of candidates would all compete for many of the same donors and activists, the campaign tasked HFT to raise the majority of money needed to win reelection a year early, in 2013. Like many small campaigns, there were limited resources available making it critical for HFT to build an operation that was efficient, cost effective, and could be managed with limited manpower. Knowing the task at hand, HFT implemented its online fundraising and advocacy technology platform, Red Stampede.
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Neal Harrington | sales@redstampede.com | 704.578.1248 | 6701 Fairview Rd., Charlotte, NC 28210 | www.redstampede.com
REDSTAMPEDE REDEFINE POSSIBLE
Fundraising, technology, & how to win a campaign before it
even starts
Andrew Murray is the District Attorney in Mecklenburg County, NC. First elected in 2010, he is up
for re-election in November. Our parent company, Harrington Forward Thinking (HFT), managed
Andrew’s campaign fundraising operation in 2010, and was retained again for the 2014 cycle.
Knowing that North Carolina would have a several high profile races in 2014; and a crowded field of
candidates would all compete for many of the same donors and activists, the campaign tasked HFT
to raise the majority of money needed to win reelection a year early, in 2013.
Like many small campaigns, there were limited resources available making it critical for HFT to
build an operation that was efficient, cost effective, and could be managed with limited manpower.
Knowing the task at hand, HFT implemented its online fundraising and advocacy technology
platform, Red Stampede.
Optimize major donor fundraising through Events
HFT devised a fundraising strategy that centered around 3 anchor events that would be
supplemented with other major donor fundraising programs. Each anchor event would headline a
major public figure in order to help draw people, and more importantly, sponsorships to each.
In order to maximize the campaign’s profit from each event, HFT used Red Stampede’s event tool
to manage each phase of the event including sponsorship recruitment; marketing and promotion;
registration, and any post event related tasks.
Unlike last campaign, HFT could now create unlimited donation tiers or sponsorship packages
within each event created on the campaign’s website. All of the event information synced with the
campaign’s email system, internal and external social networks and internal documents used for
major donor recruitment. As a result, HFT increased its number or sponsorships for each event by
an average of more than 300% compared to 2010, which generated more net profit for every event.
In addition, Red Stampede allowed the campaign to better serve its supporters by auto-populating
form fields with the registered user’s information. This enabled major donors to quickly and easily
fulfill their financial pledges and/or any additional fundraising commitments with a single click.
Each successful donation made to an event was automatically attributed to it and whichever
sponsorship level applicable. Because this information is then synced between all systems and
databases connected to Red Stampede – HFT was able to track and monitor everything in real time,
hours of data entry were eliminated, and the need for spreadsheets that plague nearly every smaller
campaign was over.
Neal Harrington | sales@redstampede.com | 704.578.1248 | 6701 Fairview Rd., Charlotte, NC 28210 | www.redstampede.com
REDSTAMPEDE REDEFINE POSSIBLE
Build a base of support through personal fundraising pages, email, and
targeted fundraising campaigns
HFT’s devised a lower dollar fundraising strategy that would entail existing supporters helping
recruit new supporters, the ability to test messaging and other elements of several simultaneous
fundraising campaigns, and a highly targeted and sophisticated email program unlike anything the
campaign had done in the past.
The campaign understood that existing campaign supporters would have greater success recruiting
and building trust between the campaign and a potential new supporter than if the campaign simply
targeted the individual itself. To accomplish this, HFT used Red Stampede’s Personal Fundraising
Pages (PFP’s). Each supporter could create his or her PFP with one click. They were also able to
edit their page title, description, and fundraising goal or use the default values set up by the
campaign.
Once created, users promoted their pages in several unique ways to recruit people to donate. They
shared it to Facebook and Twitter .They used Red Stampede’s email recruitment tool to import their
contacts, address books, and/or upload any excel list and send a personal message to each contact
inviting them to their page. They even embedded their fundraising widget into their personal blog
on the campaign’s website, in which they could then share the blog to any group that they were a
member of on the website. The campaign would help users drive traffic and build support for their
fundraising efforts by promoting the user’s fundraising blog postings to the homepage on the
website and sharing it to the campaign’s Facebook page.
Using Red Stampede’s donation manager, HFT built several unique donation pages which allowed
us to align specific fundraising messages and appeals to targeted donor groups. Each page was tested
and modified in real time when needed. Whether pushing an online contest or competition, a
fundraising deadline, or an event sponsorship, each fundraising campaign had its own donation page
with a specific – tailored message to optimize results.
HFT used Mailchimp as its primary email platform for event marketing, online contests, and
fundraising pushes. The integration allowed HFT to embed event details and donation levels into
email templates that were connected to the campaign’s website. Donors could then sponsor an event
at a particular level directly from their email. As a result, we reached several thousand more people
than in the past allowing us to eliminate the costs of printed invitations altogether. In addition, the
email program connected each fundraising initiative to a unique donation page customized for that
specific campaign.
Neal Harrington | sales@redstampede.com | 704.578.1248 | 6701 Fairview Rd., Charlotte, NC 28210 | www.redstampede.com
REDSTAMPEDE REDEFINE POSSIBLE
The outcome
HFT raised $220,000 and built the campaign’s base of support to more than 300 unique donors in
2013. Andrew’s total 2010 campaign cost $250,000, so he was well positioned heading into this
election year. In fact, as the candidate filing deadline approached earlier this year, each potential
opponent ultimately decided against running as they knew it would be difficult to overcome
Andrew’s major financial advantage. HFT congratulates Andrew and is proud to have played a small
role in helping him win reelection.
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