How Well Aware raised $77,000 in one week to provide clean water to 40,000 people

CauseVox was integral in the success of Shower Strike. Having a web platform that was easily accessible by participants, donors, and admin, that was sleek and user friendly, that enabled much greater social media potential, and empowered advocates, made fundraising much easier, much more fun, and much more effective. – Sarah Evans, Well Aware

This case study discusses how a small non-profit, Well Aware, raised over $77,000 in a week through their annual Shower Strike campaign. In addition, their campaign strategy, techniques, results, and lessons learned from their online fundraising campaign are all discussed in detail.

About Well Aware
Well Aware is a non-profit established to raise awareness and funds to provide clean water in East Africa. Well Aware is dedicated to supporting improved health and well being for individuals and organizations. It was established in 2006 by Sarah Evans, the co-founding member and current Executive Director of Well Aware.

Well Aware has a team of two part-time employees in Kenya and five volunteer board members in Austin, Texas. In the past two years, Well Aware has been able to raise approximately $25,000 – $30,000 through the Shower Strike campaign.

Shower Strike Campaign
The Shower Strike campaign is a week-long fundraising campaign, organized by the Austin Cosmopolitan Rotary Club & Well Aware, that rallied volunteers to hold a strike against showering. The goal was to get each of the volunteers to raise at least $1000 toward life-saving clean water systems in East Africa. The campaign had a team of over 100 volunteers participate in the strike around the globe and about 30 others who helped raise awareness and funds for the Shower Strike campaign. Almost 800 individuals and businesses made a donation towards the cause.

Campaign Techniques
During the campaign, Shower Strike used several techniques to reach their goal.

• • Empowered Volunteers – Well Aware was able to take a volunteer-led approach by encouraging everyone (student groups, organizations, company groups, clubs and family teams) to join the strike by creating a personal fundraising page and then reaching out to their friends, family and coworkers with their personal stories and appeals.

• • Created Resources – Shower Strike staff created a resource page, complete with pictures and guides, to give supporters information on how the strike works, encourage additional volunteers to sign up, and provide updates on fundraising progress, as well as activities for supporters that would take place throughout the week of the strike.

• • Used CauseVox – Shower Strike staff knew they needed an easy and fun fundraising platform to reach out and raise awareness. They created a CauseVox account, and repeatedly reminded supporters to spread the link to their personalized CauseVox campaign page.

• • Focused on Social Media – Well Aware used various social media accounts in phases, starting with some teasers about the event and then blasting out to Facebook and Twitter fans/followers beginning a couple of weeks before the event. The Shower Strike campaign was also aided greatly by local and national press. However, the majority of participants and donors were recruited via social media.
    
    Shower Strike also used Facebook to invite people to a launch party and silent auction held in Austin, Texas. They also asked members to join the movement by creating their own personal fundraising pages and by sharing the message on Facebook and Twitter. Facebook served as a more effective means of attracting donors because of the great “Like” to post feature that the CauseVox fundraising sites offered. Social media allowed Well Aware to recruit at least half of their advocates using posts as well as reposts/retweets by others.

• Coached Fundraisers – New volunteers who joined the Shower Strike campaign would be added to an email correspondence list and receive weekly (or more) updates that included tools for better fundraising and information they might need or want on the event and their personal campaigns.  This helped create a minimal amount of confusion for participants considering the short amount of time of the event and the number of people involved.
• Told the Story – Well Aware’s goal was to try to balance messaging on the importance of the cause with enough appeal to the “fun” and outrageous nature of the fundraiser.  The campaign was aimed at a younger group of people, a demographic that would typically not be nonprofit donors, and rather because they have the social networks to rapidly raise small amounts of money that quickly add up for big impact for our cause.  Also, Shower Strike staff believed that involving a younger group of people early helps to foster long-term giving practices.
• Secured Sponsors – Most sponsors that were procured were solicited by Board members and loyal volunteers.  With a very small number of people who could contribute their time consistently, Shower Strike staff instead chose to focus recruiting energy on volunteer fundraisers.

Campaign Results
By the end of the campaign, Shower Strike raised over $70,001 through their beautifully branded CauseVox fundraising site within one week. The funding from this campaign will provide clean water to 40,000 individuals in East Africa through five clean water wells.
Key metrics of the campaign include (rounded figures):

• Fundraising pages that raised $10 or more: 40
• Highest amount raised on fundraising page: $6760
• Average funds raised per page: $1,300
• Average online donation size: $66
• Total number of online donations: 654
• Facebook “Likes”: 150+

Lessons Learned

• A compressed time frame helped volunteers and donors take action
• Secure manpower and seek corporate sponsorship early
• Donors responded the best to a participant’s personal appeals about their strike against showers rather than just emphasizing the need for clean water in Africa.
• Using the right messaging and channels (emails/posts/tweets) for the right audience was necessary to help communicate information about the campaign.
• Organized hangouts did not contribute much to the campaign. Well Aware plans on encouraging supporters to hang out together during the week at times that are best for them rather than organizing events.
• The Shower Strike launch event and final event played a part in adding excitement and enthusiasm towards the campaign.

Photos from Well Aware. Read more about Well Aware here: www.wellawareworld.org