How idfive helped a local Baltimore nonprofit animal rescue shelter raise $250,000 in a month by involving advocates in the marketing campaign.

1. How to Put
Advocates to
Work for
Fundraising
Campaigns.

2. In December 2015, idfive partnered with the
Baltimore Animal Rescue & Care Shelter to
create an integrated, grass roots campaign that
raised over $250,000 in donations.
We’d like to share what lead to this success.

3. First off, we picked the right partner. BARCS is an
extremely productive local shelter, with great name
recognition, over 60,000 Facebook followers, has
hundreds of volunteers and plenty of local businesses
supporting their mission.
It was our job to get these people to only only
donate, but push the campaign to new audiences

5. Give the campaign a name, a
theme and a story.
People gravitate toward organized and active campaigns. You don’t
always need a hashtag, but comprehensive visuals, fonts and
messaging go a long way to make donors and advocates feel like
they’re apart of something big. Remember, they don’t want to just
give, they want to feel like, alongside others, that they’re making a
difference.

6. Create content to be
passed around.
A social media presence is nothing without great content. When it
comes to content for a campaign, we don’t mean ads or extensive
research, we mean graphics, blogs and videos that can be easily
digested and shared.
If your budget is limited, then just focus on one piece of content—our
three minute BARCS #PayItFurward video was shared over 1,000
times alone.

7. https://vimeo.com/147466646

8. Give advocates a
sense of urgency.
Just a few hours into Giving Tuesday, a dog in critical care was
dropped off at BARCS. In light of this new reality, the campaign
switched gears to tell donors that all the money they were donating
was first going to one dog named Avi, who needed to be saved. This
kind of action-based involvement is a perfect example of how to
increase the urgency of the campaign and convey its purpose.

9. Involve local
businesses.
The #PayItFurward campaign rallied local businesses to support the
cause by sharing the video on Facebook, putting posters in their stores
and handing out branded BARCS dog treats. Involving local businesses
is always a great way to reach new audiences and build the broader,
communal feeling that inspires people to give and get involved. Use
these co-marketing tips to help you find the right businesses to spread
your messaging.

10. Use an integrated
mix of tactics.
In order to give your campaign a comprehensive feel, and in order to
reach all possible audiences, you need to have a mix of online and
offline tactics. Much of the success of #PayItFurward was due to the
unabashed mix of tactics: Dog treat hand-outs in the local
neighborhood, direct emails, online video, posters, social media posts,
local news PR, billboards, etc.

11. Leverage social
networks on Facebook.
Campaigns like this show us just how important a Facebook following
is. But you can’t stop with your own channel, you need to influence
others to share, including non-competing businesses, applicable blogs
and relevant organizations. Using these outlets as audience-builders is
a very effective and often underutilized tactic.

13. Keep the angle local.
Baltimore has a rich culture and generous spirit—but this attitude can be
found anywhere. Unearthing this spirit by keeping a local angle is a great
way to motivate people.
In fact, while your campaign needs to have a collective and impactful
feel, being too big and faceless can hurt as it prevents potential donors
from making that all-important personal connection. A local angle can
help tap into people’s competitive and communal natures by motivating
them to help prove that they’re part of a caring, compassionate, and
committed community

14. Matching gifts motivates
givers.
Everyone loves a two-fer. It’s fundraising common knowledge, but worth
reaffirming that having someone to match donations will inspire people
to give because they feel that their gift has twice the impact. On
#GivingTuesday, idfive matched donations up to $1,500, and the
campaign raised $32,000 in that day alone.

15. Set a Clean
(and attainable) goal.
Setting a fundraising goal does two things: it creates urgency around a
time-sensitive movement and it motivates advocates. When you have
these two things, you’re bound to amass an audience that is working
together at the same time and focused on this one issue.

16. If you have any questions about how to develop the
type of creative work and strategy that can maximize a
fundraising effort, feel free to give us a shout.
For more information on the #PayItFurward
campaign, check out the case study.