$3,705 Raised on Facebook with $0 Ad Spend with Chelsea Edwards

If you think Facebook doesn't work to acquire donors anymore, this case study with Chelsea Edwards from the Colorectal Cancer Alliance will prove you otherwise.

For the past three years as the Senior Director of Peer-to-Peer Giving, Chelsea has been instrumental in amplifying their fundraising campaigns, like "Lead From Behind", which harnessed celebrity influencers like Ryan Reynolds.

Partnering with GoodUnited on their messaging and Facebook fundraising efforts last year resulted in 440 people launching a campaign around “Blue Day'' and $3,705 raised, with $0 in ad spend!

Chelsea breaks down the details of their strategy, including the messaging and segmenting they used to engage donors and the analytics they paid attention to. Interestingly, Facebook Messenger drove higher click-through rates as compared to email.

We also explore the art of listening to your donors, using their stories to refine your strategies, ensuring that every click contributes to a narrative of hope and support.

March is Colon Cancer Awareness Month. Learn more about how to support the cause.

Resources & Links

Learn more about the Colorectal Cancer Alliance, including the upcoming ScopeItOut event in Washington DC. You can connect with Chelsea at cedwards@ccalliance.org or on LinkedIn. 

Want to make Missions to Movements even better? Take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram. Be sure to tag @positivequation so I can connect with you. 

Don’t miss DonorPerfect’s Community Conference SPARK on June 4 & 5! It’s for any fundraiser wanting to excel in donor management, program innovation, community engagement, and organizational growth. Register for FREE! RSVP: https://bit.ly/DSSPARK

Want a donor acquisition plan tailored to you? All you need to do is answer 5 simple questions. Get your personalized growth plan: https://bit.ly/DonorGrowthQuiz

The NIO Summit is the nonprofit industry’s premier digital fundraising event! Join hundreds of fellow nonprofit professionals in Indianapolis September 18-19 and save $600 on your ticket -- the lowest price available anywhere right here: https://bit.ly/NIOSummit2024

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:36

We've had some really exciting celebrities do videos for us on our behalf through the Sleep From Behind campaign Brian Reynolds, rob McLaney, terry Cruz and, most recently, dak Prescott right before the holidays. So those have really gone a long way in terms of obviously increasing awareness, because those are people that have a following of their own and whose opinions are respected, and so I think that doing things like that, that are a little more surprising, a little more kind of out there, have really helped with our social media platform, deeperness.

Speaker 2: 2:13

Hey there, you're listening to the Missions to Movement podcast and I'm your host, dana Snyder, digital Strategist for Non-Profits and Founder and CEO of Positive Equations. This show highlights the digital strategies of organizations making a positive impact in the world. We're here to learn the latest trends, actionable tips and the real stories from behind the feed. Let's transform your mission into a movement.

Speaker 3: 2:42

Welcome back to another episode of the Missions to Movement's podcast. My name and your host of this episode is Dana Snyder, and I am so happy to be in your car or earbuds or wherever you happen to be listening today and with me. I have a really fun case study to share with you today from Chelsea Edwards. Chelsea, welcome to the show. Hi, thanks for having me. Of course, will you share a little bit about your title, your role, and then I also like to ask for a non-Google-able bio of yourself.

Speaker 1: 3:20

Yeah, so my name's Chelsea Edwards. I'm the Senior Director of Peer to Peer Giving for the Cholerectal Cancer Alliance. I've been in the nonprofit industry, and specifically in the cancer fighting fundraising space, for most of my career, which is over 15 years, and have been with the Alliance for three years leading all of their community-based fundraising. So super excited to be here and share about that. And my non-Google-able bio is I guess you could find this on Google, but I have four kids, two girls and two boys, 10, eight, four and two, oh my goodness. So they keep us super busy. And right now I am spending all of my free time at gyms watching my two girls, who are my oldest, play basketball and this is probably not Google-able. Say that easy for me to say right. My daughter's fourth grade basketball team is really impressive little group and is headed to the Ohio State fourth grade tournament in a couple of weeks, so that's kind of the exciting thing that probably is on Google in my life right now. Yeah, okay, well.

Speaker 3: 4:26

I bow down to you for having four children. That is a big feat and incredible. I always say to people where I was like I have one and I don't know how people with multiples do it. And four two years apart, basically, is phenomenal and that is such a fun time when there's energy and hype around like a winning team for kids. I remember those days not so early for me, but in high school and it was just like my parents still talk about those being such fun years for them too. So, yeah, it's super fun, that's awesome. It's awesome. So I want to talk about today. I was alerted to a really fun Facebook case study that you worked on and some people are like wait, facebook? Did you say that? I think sometimes we think about Facebook as still just we're using it for personal reasons. It might not really work for organizations anymore and this case study really like proves otherwise. So I wanted to ask you right before we jump in to the case study you have this dress in blue day challenge that we'll talk about but how, overall, is social media really utilized in your organization currently?

Speaker 1: 5:36

That's an interesting question because I think it's always evolving, but the primary use is just for awareness, is to get the word out. The colorectal cancer alliance really it leans in a lot to the fact that colorectal cancer is a disease that most people don't feel comfortable talking about and, as a result, has not really been given the attention that it deserves in terms of the impact that it's had. Late data that has just recently come out now has it listed as the number one cancer killer of men under 50, which a lot of people are surprised to hear. But that is really the biggest way that we use Facebook at the alliance is to spread awareness and just to get the word out and get it in front of people. So this case study is interesting because I think that we have been really trying on my team that focuses on fundraising to elevate our fundraising use of Facebook over the last couple of years and this case study is really one of the examples that we really try to lean into. A month colon cancer awareness month is in March. That is kind of our Super Bowl in terms of awareness and we really try to leverage at month and the heightened awareness around the disease as much as possible. So we've used it social for awareness and we really are trying to now use that heightened awareness that we have with social to also fundraise Awesome.

Speaker 3: 6:49

Where have you seen the most traction platform, wise when it comes to raising awareness, and specifically, I guess not only the channel, but what kind of content have you seen that's actually made people may be like oh okay, maybe I do need to take a step further and research this a bit.

Speaker 1: 7:09

Yeah, yeah. So a couple of things. You know, our Marcom team, who is separate from us but really a strong partner of ours, really leads a lot of that. I would say Facebook and Instagram, which kind of can be interchangeable these days because so many of the posts happen on both. We see a lot of traction there. We have a Facebook group called Blue Hope Nation that folks come to who've been impacted by the disease and is super active, has a ton of followers and members, and so that's really been somewhere where we found. We found a way to connect with folks that are in the stadium, as we like to call it, people that have already engaged with us. But then, in terms of connecting with people outside of the stadium, we, you know, try to do videos. We also are the organization behind the lead from behind campaign that was led by Ryan Reynolds If you haven't looked it up, youtube it and we've had some really exciting celebrities do videos for us on our behalf through this lead from behind campaign Brian Reynolds, rob McLaney, terry Cruz and, most recently, dak Prescott right before holidays. So those have really gone a long way in terms of, you know, obviously increasing awareness, because those are people that have a following of their own and whose opinions are respected, and so I think that doing things like that, that are a little more surprising, a little more kind of out there, have really helped with our social media platform gain awareness.

Speaker 3: 8:27

I love lots of things that you just said. One I want to go back to the Facebook groups. I think that is so powerful. I have joined when I found out that I have a chromosome disorder which was led to struggles with fertility. For me, the actually one of the places that somebody recommended was for me to go to a Facebook group and it was amazing because I had I felt very alone and then there were probably like 2000 ish women in this group that were dealing with exactly what I was going through all over the world, and that was incredible. And then, second, I just joined another one because we ended up getting the helmet for our daughter to fix like a little flat spot and I was very concerned and nervous about it, and so I found a plagiosephaly. I don't know if I'm saying that right. Hopefully I am group with other moms who are dealing with it, and it's interesting like these groups have been so beneficial just to meet and talk to other people going through the same thing. So I think that's incredible and a huge nugget for people to mark off. Second, the celebrity angle I don't know if this is something that you can speak to within the work that you do, but I think people might hear those names and be like what? Like how in the world did they get them to say yes? That's something that we did very similar at Movember, where we had and there was no payment. It was just as they did hire a consultant that was like a talent rep to help make those introductions. Do you have any tips for people that are looking to find an influential voice to partner with them on their cause?

Speaker 1: 10:02

I will start with the caveat that this all happened with our executive team and our Marcom team. So this is I'm definitely the third party sharing these two bits, but a couple of the things. So Ryan Reynolds marketing firm, maximum effort the CEO, I believe, had a close connection to the cause, and so that's kind of how that all came around. And Ryan Reynolds is also just an incredible human who is always looking to help others, so that's kind of where he came in. And then, of course, rob McElhaney is a friend of his, so that came through that relationship. And Dak Prescott actually his mother passed away from colon cancer. We are also really lucky to have Craig Melvin, whose brother lost his bowel to colorectal cancer, on our board, and so that obviously helps with relationships and the Today Show, and he's able to help us quite a bit. So I would just say it's about finding influential folks that have been impacted by your cause. I think that's really what it comes down to. Even the most famous people in the world are human beings and have friends and family that they love, and so, whatever your cause is, I'm sure there's somebody out there who's been impacted and cares about it and would be willing to help. So, like I said, I haven't been on the front lines of those relationships in that work, but our incredible Markham team and executive team have been really great about identifying those people and then bringing them into the fold.

Speaker 3: 11:22

Yes, awesome. Thank you so much for sharing just a little bit of a glimpse into that. Yes, okay, let's dive into this Facebook campaign. Okay, so, from the very high level, what was the initial goal and idea? From raising awareness, which you typically do on social, to adding, like the fundraising element?

Speaker 1: 11:40

Yeah, so it's hard to believe it's been over a year ago now. Good United, our partner that we work with for our Facebook fundraising, did a presentation on some new features that they were adding to their messaging platform that nonprofits could take advantage of, and they actually shared a case study where they used this new messaging capability to spread awareness about a specific post. And the data around it was just incredible. I mean, the amount of shares and likes that they got just from messaging people that were their followers, that had opted into hearing from them and saying, hey, we've got this post, go ahead and share, like, spread awareness about the specific thing. And we were coming up on Dress and Blue Day and Column Cancer Awareness Month and listening to this presentation, I couldn't help but think well, what if we asked people to fundraise with this same platform, with this same kind of strategy? What would happen? And God love the folks at Good United. They're always willing to hear our crazy ideas and so we gave them a call and said we'd love to jump on a call with you and just share this idea. Megan, who is my peer-to-peer manager on my team that manages Facebook fundraising, her and I kind of got together and aligned on what it could look like and then went and talked to the team at Good United and said here's what we'd like to do. We'd like to do a post about Dress and Blue Day, asking people to fundraise, and then we'd like to use the same exact strategy to promote that post and to ask people to opt in and fundraise and create a fundraiser around Dress and Blue Day, because Dress and Blue Day has always been really about awareness. We asked people to Dress and Blue, of course, post on social media and their blue outfits. It's the first Friday in March every year, so to really kick the month off, this is perfect timing, yes, exactly. So we thought why not add a fundraising feature to this whole thing? And so we did a post at the beginning of the month and talked about a Dress and Blue Day contest that if someone posted their picture Dress and Blue and added a fundraiser to it just like you can on Facebook when you post you mentioned a nonprofit. It usually asks would you like to start a fundraiser for this nonprofit? And we did just that, and then we shared that post in Messenger with all of our current followers and the folks that had opted in to get messages from us the devils and the details, but I'm pretty sure we ended up opting to send that out specifically to folks who have fundraised for us in the past and write our file because we knew those folks we know were willing to activate around it. We saw a great success. We had 440 people that decided to go ahead and start a fundraiser and lots of engagement, and we were really excited to just see people activate on something that typically was just a post, a picture, and move on with their lives and turn that into a way to raise some extra funds during our Super Bowl month.

Speaker 3: 14:22

So did you use? Okay. So, for I'm going to dive into some of the details here of what I'm thinking about you were able to filter you were people by those who have fundraised for you before. Is that in the nonprofit manager section? Yes, yeah, Okay. And then did you send the messages through Good United's tool, or was that directly in the Facebook platform?

Speaker 1: 14:45

So that's an interesting question, because we did both. So we've sent through the tool for Good United. We also sent emails just to see but we were able to track those through the tool, the way that we sent them, because we had specific links out to those fundraisers. And we've seen and actually this is true for not just this case study but even future ones that the messenger people were much more likely to engage than folks that got an email, and so we saw a lot more clicks on the link that were a part of the messaging stream, versus email, which you hear all the time. Come to people where they are and let them give and engage in the way they want to. And I feel like that was really kind of proof in the pudding there that if they've come to you through Facebook, that they're most likely to stick with you through Facebook.

Speaker 3: 15:27

Yes, and they get a ping on their phone as like a push notification when you're sent to like Instagram or Facebook. Yes, yes, I love that. All right, so you had this link and the link was meant for them to create a fundraiser, right? Yes, okay, was that the link? I have just recently done my own demo with Good United and so they have, and I'm wondering if this is what you use. Did you use their tool? Where, if anybody's not familiar, currently, if you go to create a Facebook fundraiser on the native Facebook platform, you open it up, you have to pick the header, you have to enter in your name, you have to enter in a headline, you have to fill out an about, you have to pick the amount that you want to fundraise for. You're going to put like a story about yourself and then you're going to hit Go Live. They have this feature and I'm wondering if this is what you use, where this link pre-fills out most of that. It creates like a template, essentially, and so they have one button to click to create the fundraiser. Is that what you used?

Speaker 1: 16:26

Yeah, yeah, and it's funny because we actually, I think we had one of our staff that went through and went to test it and he was like it all happened so fast. I created a fundraiser, for I even realized that I created a fundraiser. So you know, I think that's a good thing right that it's so easy that people are used to the process you just described, where they've got to fill in a bunch of stuff and, you know, opt into a bunch of things, and this kind of new feature makes it all done for you and just you know people can fill in their specific story or why they're doing their fundraiser and get started. So I think that did make things a lot easier, that we had that kind of template worked out for people and they were really able to engage. I mean, that's what it's all about, right, it's making it as easy as possible to support us.

Speaker 3: 17:06

Absolutely Okay. So then they filled this out. What was the final total raised?

Speaker 1: 17:12

So it was a little over 3,700. Awesome.

Speaker 3: 17:16

And then see 440 people enter the journey and then how many complete I don't know if it's completed their fundraisers or like ended up doing the fundraisers.

Speaker 1: 17:24

Yeah, raising money were 37 fundraisers.

Speaker 3: 17:27

Okay, awesome yeah. And then did you end up doing any further communication for those that entered the journey but didn't maybe like?

Speaker 1: 17:34

follow through. That was all kind of a part of the journey. So if they didn't follow through and didn't create a funders and they went kind of on their own journey, messaging journey around, how you know how they can enter or how they can engage with us in other ways, that was one of the things that we talked a lot about what that off ramp, so to speak, would look like in allowing people to share, kind of. If this isn't how they want to engage with us, is there another way that they would like to? So that was a really strategic part of our conversation in building those journeys is to make sure that there is an off ramp that feels respectful to the fact that they decided not to do a funderser but also gives us a little extra information on how we can engage with them in the future.

Speaker 3: 18:09

Yes, awesome, and all of this, which I think is really cool. On their back end, you can track the dollars raised. How many times somebody has created a Facebook fundraiser for you. Were there any other interesting metrics that your team was doing? Analysis of post event.

Speaker 1: 18:26

Those were the big ones, just like how many times they fundraise for us, how much they fundraise. We did take an extra look at some of the comments on that off ramp to see kind of what people were saying. There were some people that just said I just don't want to. There were some people that identified other ways or reasons that they weren't fundraising. And then I always like to take a look at the word maps and then the little explanations about why people fundraise and what their story is. That's something that I think we take a look at to just see kind of what types of customer journeys are most likely to do this. So, is it survivors? Is it that kind of thing? It was a mix with this, but that's always interesting to look at to see kind of what the motivation is.

Speaker 3: 19:07

That's a really great point, because if you're an organization where a lot of times we don't even check that column on Facebook about who's fundraising for us and engage with those people and being able to have I didn't even that's actually a really great point that information that's in their story are things we wish we could ask for in a giving form, but no one's going to take the time to fill that out. So that's really interesting. So can you explain that word cloud? I didn't know that was something you could do. Yeah, and I don't know if it's still in that messaging platform.

Speaker 1: 19:40

It's in the old dashboard where you track the overall fundraising. They've had a word cloud that kind of pops out the words that are used a lot in that messaging, so survivor, stage four, caregiver, that kind of thing. So that was always very interesting to me to take a look at. Beyond that, just being able to go into kind of the open-ended question answers and read folks' stories and why they do what they do, it always gave us extra context, especially as we, megan and I, try to take a look at those and look at those top fundraisers or fundraisers that are over a certain amount of money and do some special outreach to them, and that's like doing our homework right there because, typically the ones that have fundraised most maybe answered that question and they've given us kind of their story and that gives us the ability to kind of go into sending them an extra message or shooting them an email or even setting up a phone call and already knowing like hey, they lost their dad, that's why they're here and we can go into the conversation with a little bit of history, which I think just makes for a much easier stewardship. We talk a lot about how we are a very small organization with very big goals and so we only have so much time in the day, we only have so many people on the team, and so anything we can do to make it easier for us to provide a really personal and meaningful relationship with our donors is super valuable.

Speaker 3: 21:01

That's awesome and so glad you mentioned that. I wanted to ask how was this done? Resource wise, Like what was the lift like to make it?

Speaker 1: 21:08

happen. That's the best part about this, I think, is that it really was minimal because the platform was already set up, because Good United was so gracious in kind of using us as a guinea pig to use the same strategy they used with this other organization for fundraising. We really just had to set up the journeys and work with Good United for that. We did not use zero dollars for ads, we didn't promote this, we didn't pay to promote this, I should say at all, and it was kind of just a let's set up a separate journey and put it out there and then it all kind of happened on its own. So the lift was really minimal, both from the financial standpoint and just the time and staff resourcing standpoint.

Speaker 3: 21:49

That's incredible. That's awesome. I mean, that's just like proven putting. Is this something that you would replicate and do again?

Speaker 1: 21:55

Yeah, so we've done a couple of different things with the same sort of strategy. We've just started doing a fund-and-need campaigns where we pick specific programs or parts of our mission to fund. We did one back in the fall around our patient support programs and plan to continue to do that, and we've seen a lot of great engagement through that strategy and really doing the same thing Just putting a post out there asking people to fund raise and then utilizing that messenger platform to promote it.

Speaker 3: 22:23

Super cool. I love this. Thank you so much for sharing with everybody. I think messenger is a very untapped tool in Facebook, but it's where we spend so much time. Yes, mm-hmm, I have so many conversations on Facebook or Instagram DMs all the time, and I'm actually testing right now. It's on the paid side, but like generating leads Through messenger in setting, having people click a form, yeah, and having them do a button set, so very interesting. I want to jump into a section called ask and receive, and my first question for you is is there another Organization or brand or person that you think is just rocking at marketing or has led a A really great campaign that you think should be featured on the show?

Speaker 1: 23:13

That's a tough one, I would say, and I don't think anyone that knows me at all that listens to this will be at all surprised. I spent a lion's share of my career at the American Cancer Society and I think there are so many different Nooks and crannies of that organization that are doing incredible work and just it's such a huge organization. So there's just so many different areas. It's almost like it's a bunch of different organizations, but I am just consistently impressed with the things that they do and the way that they have stayed so relevant and Trustworthy for just so long. So I think that they're a great organization. I also think Alzheimer's is Someone that I take a look at and watch, and I'm so impressed when With how they handle the celebrity piece, because there's been so many big celebrities that have been diagnosed that are struggling and they they're always so respectful. But it also, I think, is really impactful for their mission and the awareness around the disease, the way that they I hate to say the word use, because I feel like that's not the right thing leverage these kind of big lanes. Yeah, yeah, highlight these bigger names that are impacted, because I think, just like any disease, we're all about, you know, making sure people understand the impact of the disease that we're talking about, and I think Alzheimer's has done a really excellent job at Kind of highlighting the celebrities recently that have been impacted great examples.

Speaker 3: 24:35

I will put those on my list. Yeah, they were in March, so I'm gonna take a gander at this next question, but is there one thing that you would like to ask for help or support on?

Speaker 1: 24:46

Yeah, so it's March, so it's colon cancer virus month. This is our Super Bowl. This is the month that kind of everybody prepares for and then recaps and starts over, and something that we're doing this year that's sort of new new in terms of the energy we're putting around. It is at the end of March. Every year we have a huge event. It's our homecoming event called scope it out. It's a walk in Washington DC. This year, for the first year ever, we are on the National Mall during Terry Blossom season, so we're super excited. Yes it's gonna be a really awesome event. But the thing that anyone listening to this podcast can be involved with is we have a feature that's been around for a couple of years but we're really making it a more robust experience is our coast-to-coast portion of scope it out. So it is essentially our virtual participation, but we will have a Facebook live event happening from the mall, hopefully get some really exciting guests to come on that show and be a part of it and anyone can register and be a part of scope it out. The core cancer and alliances celebrating its 25th anniversary on March 18th this year and we really just want to make scope it out, you know, supposed to post the way that everyone that's been impacted by CRC in some way to come together, kind of in solidarity to celebrate the progress that we've made, but also to have renewed energy around what we can accomplish If we come together and make sure that we're standing loud and proud together.

Speaker 3: 26:08

Oh my gosh, I absolutely love it. I'm gonna have to have you come back on and give us a recap. Scope it out Also. What a great name by the way. Very fun. I've been looking at some of your social posts. Very fun branding.

Speaker 1: 26:18

Yes, we do not shy away from the cheekiness.

Speaker 3: 26:21

Yes, we're gonna plan around, we talk about well, very similar to, I mean, when I worked at Movember and talking about just taking my cancer, and they're like know thy balls? Exactly, I have to grab the attention, have to make that attention, stick people to listen. So I love that. And then, lastly, so if people want to join, scope it out, if they want to learn more about the organization, if they want to connect with you, what's the best way to do that?

Speaker 1: 26:47

So our website is colorectalcancerorg and you can kind of get to any of those things from that website and my email is cedwards at CC Allianceorg. You can find me on the website, you can find me through that email and, of course, you know, feel free to connect on LinkedIn as well and I think that the email or the website sorry, polaractalcancerorg is kind of the best first stop and you can get to the scope it out website from there. You can see kind of the latest and greatest of all the things happening in March. Or Markham team always puts out a really Fantastic kind of list of all the ways that you can be involved and they usually have a really cool kind of clickable flyer that has all those things and takes you right to each thing that you can do. So that so that website will house all those exciting things and also updates are only from behind and celebrities. So we're working with through that program.

Speaker 3: 27:38

Awesome Chelsea. This has been phenomenal. Thank you for all the hard work that you and your team do and I am Wishing you to have so much fun and raising awareness for the event at the end of this month. So thank you so much for being with us.

Speaker 2: 27:52

Thank you, have a great one Can you tell I love talking. All things digital to make this show better. I'd be so grateful for your feedback. Leave a review, take a screenshot of this episode, share it on Instagram stories and tag positive equation with one e so I can reshare and connect with you.