Giving DuPage Days 2021 Case Study
Goal: $300,000. Results: $392,296 for DuPage County nonprofits.
Introduction
Giving DuPage, a nonprofit volunteering organization for DuPage County, held their second-annual “Giving DuPage Days.” In 2020, they decided to create a 30-day online community fundraising event. In 2021, this month-long effort was transformed into an exciting week of fundraising for over 100 local nonprofits. Paul Gregory Media’s (PGM) team prepared months in advance in order to relay their message of giving locally and to be the change in your local community.
Goal
We were tasked with successfully managing Giving DuPage Days for a second year, generating more awareness and engagement than last year, constructing effective paid search on social media, and upholding Giving DuPage’s strong and positive tonality. Our overarching goal was to create a sense of community throughout this 100% virtual community fundraiser. Our goal was to reach $300,000 in donations.
Process
Our team was responsible for the creative strategy and implementation behind the social media campaign, #GivingDuPageDays. We created all graphics, animations, and Facebook ads and engaged in social listening to respond on social media in a timely manner to mentions from followers. We put together several videos to show the impact of giving locally, and generated a report at the conclusion of the campaign. On social media, we focused on creating graphics such as: registration dates, webinar information, FAQ’s, non-for-profit recognition, sponsor recognitions, milestones, graphics of benefitting causes, motivational quote graphics, and social media banners. On Facebook, we managed the paid advertisements and boosted posts using best practices and well-defined audience segments, while allocating our advertisement budget funds effectively and intelligently. Throughout the 7-day span, we monitored which ads were gaining mileage and changed them accordingly. This effort was done in collaboration with PGM and Giving DuPage, bringing new ideas to the table each day. Additionally, we shared and curated content that was being posted by the organizations so they could reach more of a wider audience with Giving DuPage’s followers.
The Result
The Giving DuPage Days community fundraiser surpassed their goal of raising $300,000, with a grand total of $392,296 for DuPage County nonprofits. On social media, in the entire 7-days, we reached 270,958 people on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn combined, meaning Giving DuPage’s posts showed up in that many people’s news feeds. We had a total of 13,951 engagements, meaning that many people liked, commented, reacted, and shared Giving DuPage’s posts. Bringing awareness to social media is key to a successful online community fundraiser. Video content has skyrocketed on social media and we integrated both videos and animations into this campaign. As you can see, the graph displays 18,060 total views occurred on Facebook throughout the Giving DuPage Days campaign. Giving DuPage’s original goals were exceeded due to our consistent observations of how the ad was performing, and engaging with nonprofit organizations and people online to build this campaign up. Throughout this process, we learned that life is all about give and take; Even during an on-going pandemic, we all continued to choose positivity and the results showed.
