Healthy Fundraising

"It was obvious when we shared the video with the staff that we had hit the mark. People felt, 'Yep, that's exactly what we want people to feel.' That was a proud moment," Espy adds.

The campaign was such a success that the elements and tactics CaringBridge used are now standard cornerstones of its campaigns going forward. It's easy to see why, given the response and 
feedback from the CaringBridge community.

"We were very excited to see how people responded. We had a constituent call in ask if they could order a T-shirt with the [You Are Powerful] imagery on it. That's one of the greatest things you can hear after a campaign," Nelson says. "At the end of the day, you know you've done something right when people want to wear your campaign."

One Birth

Unlike CaringBridge, fellow health care nonprofit HealthConnect One does not rely almost entirely on individual donations for the bulk of its funding. The Chicago-based organization, missioned to advance respectful, community-based, peer-to-peer support for pregnancy, birth, breast feeding and early parenting by working with grassroots maternal and child health and social services providers through training, recently secured a $3 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and also applied for funding from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

However, that doesn't make its annual end-of-year fundraising campaign any less important, says Development Director Cindy Ogrin, because individual giving is vital for any organization to sustain itself for the long haul. So every year, HealthConnect One embarks on an annual fundraising appeal in conjunction with its annual report to try and get donors to continue to give, ideally at a higher level than the year before.

With its 25-year anniversary on the horizon, HealthConnect One wanted to create a campaign that really drove home the vision while celebrating the history of the organization. Thus, the One Birth theme was born for the 2011 multichannel year-end campaign, which included a direct-mail piece, four e-mails, online giving, social media and a short media story, all created 
in-house.