In the summer of 2010, CauseVox launched a Pilot Program for select non-profits to use an early-stage version of its supporter-driven fundraising platform. As part of this program, a celebrity spokesman from The Blind Project created a fundraising page that led to over $20,000 in donations. This case study discusses the details of her fundraising page success.
About The Blind Project
The Blind Project’s mission is to empower women rescued out of the commercial sex trade in Southeast Asia. Its fashion line, Biographe, promotes the holistic restoration of survivors, teaches them marketable job skills in fashion design and production, and employs them in a positive work environment while earning a living wage.
Celebrity Fundraising Page
Experimenting with creative ways to fundraise online, The Blind Project needed a solution for their celebrity spokeswoman to create a personal fundraising page for her birthday. Birthday fundraising is an effective personal fundraising technique that repurposes birthday gifts to donations for a cause.
The celebrity spokeswoman launched a birthday campaign through the CauseVox platform. The customizable platform enabled the spokesman to create a fundraising page that matched the branding, look, and feel of The Blind Project.
Fundraising Techniques
During her campaign, the celebrity spokeswoman used several techniques to raise funds and awareness.
- Social Media – The celebrity spokeswoman actively used Twitter to push daily updates on the progress of her campaign. She recognized supporters through mentions and re-tweets. In addition, she motivated supporters to encourage other celebrities to promote her page.
- Content – The celebrity spokesman created videos describing what the cause meant to her to personalize the campaign.
- Personal Event – The campaign she ran was positioned as a birthday fundraiser — instead of buying her a gift, friends, family, and fans could donate to a cause.
- Communication – To bring other people into the campaign, the celebrity spokesman sent personal emails her friends, family, and business associates.
Campaign Results & Lessons Learned
By the end of the campaign, The Blind Project raised over $20,000 online. Key lessons learned include:
- Consistent branding between fundraising pages and the organization’s website is important to give the donor a consistent experience
- Celebrities are able to raise a higher degree of awareness, but their donation conversion rate (donations/unique visits) is no higher than the average non-celebrity
- Strong personal relationships with donors yield higher donation amounts than weak relationships, such as through social media.
