Nonprofit Champion: Katie from United Way of Buffalo & Erie County
The United Way of Buffalo and Erie County aims to bring people, organizations, and resources together to improve community well-being.
Katie Buseck, Marketing Communications Manager for the United Way of Buffalo and Erie County, shared her positive experience using GiveGab for Western New York’s Day of Giving, Spring it On 2016.
What would you consider to be your most successful campaign and why?
Katie: Spring It On – United Way of Buffalo & Erie County. We did extremely well during the day because of the fundraising champion tool that is unique to GiveGab.
What would you attribute to this great success?
Katie: We utilized the fundraising champions feature and our staff reached out to their personal networks to fundraise. We don’t typically do that internally, so it was a good experiment and worked out wonderfully.
Walk us through your plan of action for this campaign
Katie: This was planned approximately 5 months in advance and we utilized our internal staff that made asks to their personal networks. This is not typical for our fundraising strategies and the changes definitely worked!
Of the donors for this campaign, about what percentage would you say were repeat donors versus new?
Katie: For this specific campaign I would say we were probably 60% new 40% reoccurring.
What efforts have you made to reach out to new donors and were any of them particularly successful?
Katie: The fundraising champions strategy worked very well.
How did you recruit your fundraising champions?
Katie: We used internal staff and board members.
How would you describe your relationship with your donors? How frequently do you interact with them?
Katie: Not frequently enough and we are working on fixing that. We mainly utilize social media & email communications for interactions. Our donor involvement is a 50/50 split, consisting of the very responsive and involved and then some that donate once and then we never hear from again.
Was there anything you learned from this campaign that stood out as something you could implement again?
Katie: Fundraising champions! Not to be a broken record, but we plan on utilizing this feature much more in our next campaign.
What is your single best piece of advice for other nonprofits when it comes to launching a successful fundraising campaign?
Katie: Have a clear message and story. People want to know why they should give. If available, have metrics that show the impact you are having in the community. Having a representative from outside the organization testify to the great work you do helps as well.
Congratulations, United Way of Buffalo & Erie County, on Your Success!
