Missions to Movements
Missions to Movements is the nonprofit marketing and fundraising podcast that helps you grow recurring donors, scale monthly giving programs, and build digital campaigns that convert.
Hosted by Dana Snyder—speaker, strategist, and founder of Positive Equation—this show is packed with actionable nonprofit growth strategies, social media tips, and fundraising best practices.
Each week, you’ll hear how organizations are increasing donor retention, building thought leadership, and using digital fundraising to drive real impact. If you want to learn how to attract monthly donors, master nonprofit marketing, and transform your mission into a movement, this podcast is for you.
Missions to Movements
How to Launch a Monthly Giving Program That Attracts First-Time Donors (Case Study: $10 for 10 Campaign) with Raegan Mach, Urban Bridge
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Imagine if you ask someone to become a monthly donor for just $10, and they give more than triple that?
It's no secret that talking about monthly giving strategies and case studies is my jam, so I brought on Raegan Mach to break down Urban Bridge’s “10 for 10” campaign.
Their goal? 25 new donors at $10/month to celebrate their 10-year anniversary. In just 2.5 months, they surpassed it!
You’ll hear how they drove 15 new donors in the first 48 hours with a CEO-led launch video, strategic campaign champions, and consistent messaging across email and social, and why LinkedIn turned out to be a surprisingly powerful conversion channel.
If you’ve been thinking about launching or prioritizing monthly giving, this is a practical, replicable case study you won’t want to miss.
Resources & Links
Connect with Raegan on LinkedIn and Instagram and learn more about Urban Bridge on their website. Follow Urban Bridge at @urbanbridgenow on Instagram.
Raegan uses FundraiseUp to improve their donor experience.
Bloomerang is the proud presenter of Missions to Movements.
Bloomerang is the trusted, all-in-one giving platform that connects your data, streamlines your systems, and helps your mission go further. Learn more at bloomerang.com.
If you’re building a movement, join Bloomerang’s GiveCon in St. Louis May 15-17 to learn what’s working in donor retention, AI, major gifts, recurring revenue, and community-driven campaigns. Register now and use code M2M to save $200!
The Monthly Giving Builder: Generate your comprehensive monthly giving plan and build your program step by step - with a guided companion working alongside you from start to finish.
Let's Connect!
Setting Up The Case Study
SPEAKER_01I just love a good monthly giving case study. And today's episode is just that. Reagan Mock is the director of development for Urban Bridge, brings a nearly decade of nonprofit fundraising and community organizing experience to her work. Recently, Urban Bridge launched a campaign called 10 for 10 to celebrate its 10-year anniversary. The goal was to recruit 25 new monthly donors at$10 a month. This was last fall over a two and a half month period of time. But what happened instead? I'm not going to tell you. You got to listen to the episode. But today, Reagan is breaking down exactly how they combined storytelling, the idea of campaign champions, and consistent messaging to turn this simple anniversary idea into a scalable, recurring giving engine of sustainable funding. So if you have been thinking about launching or relaunching or investing in a monthly giving program, this episode is a wonderful case study for any small organizations that are looking to just get started and the success that you can see when you make it a priority. Let's go meet Reagan.
SPEAKER_02We kind of were leaning into this theme of this is our 10-year anniversary as an organization. And so how do we like really emphasize that and create a movement around this that storytells, right? It tells a story of the community we've served and our organization's growth and the youth who have been in our programs over these last 10 years, and then also leverage it to help get new donors on board. And so through a series of conversations, I was like, what if instead of doing$5 a month, we asked people to do$10 a month and called it the 10 for 10. And it happened to actually just like work out really well.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so it's no secret that talking monthly giving strategies and case studies is my jam. So I am thrilled to jump in one today with you, Reagan. I would love to know before we jump into talking about 10 for 10 in this case study. Where was Urban Bridge with recurring revenue? What kind of priority did it have? And then what made you decide to like kind of launch into this strategy for this anniversary campaign?
From Five To Ten For Ten
SPEAKER_02For sure. So Urban Bridge, I would have said, probably had like a middle-of-the-road monthly giving donor base. More than I've seen at other organizations I've worked for. So there were probably 30 or 40 people who are already giving, but they were people who had very personal relationships with the founder and the community. And they were not individuals that were like from outside of our community, which I think is like good and bad, right? So there's the great part of people who care about our mission and care about the people who are doing the work are investing. But then you only know so many people, and you have to get people on board who you don't know and who care about your mission but not may not know you or may not know the organization's leaders. And so we really started this with the intention to grow our donor base to new donors and make it really accessible. Part of it was a people within our community, the community that we serve, over 40% of that population lives below the federal poverty level. And so we were like, there are people in this community who love and care and support us, but they don't have the financial means to give a$1,000 gift every year.
SPEAKER_01Right, right.
SPEAKER_02And so what are ways they can feel involved and committed to this work? And then the second part was really making it accessible to people who knew of our organization, but didn't have as strong of a personal bond and to help them get the foot in the door to A, feel like they're invested and committed to our mission, and us to also grow that donor base.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. When did the concept of the$10 a month campaign come into reality? Like how did the team come to that decision?
SPEAKER_02It was through a series of different conversations and brainstorming. We started out with what was called the five on it, which there's a song that's putting five on it. Yeah. I put five on it. Exactly. We started there. And then I was like, well, we kind of were leaning into this theme of this is our 10-year anniversary as an organization. And so how do we like really emphasize that and create a movement around this that storytells, right? It tells the story of the community we've served and our organization's growth and the youth who have been in our programs over these last 10 years, and then also leverage it to help get new donors on board. And so through a series of conversations, I was like, what if instead of doing$5 a month, we asked people to do$10 a month and called it the 10 for 10. And it happened to actually just like work out really well.
SPEAKER_01Love it when that happens.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we we had different conversations with a variety of different people within our organization or community members who supported us, and they're like, I like this. Like this feels like, and it what's really cool is like, especially being in the nonprofit community, you are exposed to so many different other organizations. Yes. What filled my cup was seeing other nonprofit professionals who we work with, who are partners, and you know, executive directors of organizations actually sign up to become monthly donors for us.
SPEAKER_01Love that. Yeah. So cool.
SPEAKER_02That speaks pretty highly, I think, of people who work with 20 to 30 different nonprofits go, you know what, I actually really want to commit to giving my money to you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's extraordinary. Okay, so break us down. When was this all happening?
SPEAKER_02So this happened in the fall of last year of 2025. We were wanting to ramp up not only our gratitude efforts, but just getting more information out to the public around this being our 10-year anniversary before we went into the end of year campaign.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_02So that's kind of setting the stage. This is like from August to October is when our campaign ran.
SPEAKER_01And this is going out to everyone.
Timeline, Channels, And Goals
SPEAKER_02This is going out to everyone. This is going out via newsletters, social media, personal contacts. We even asked our current monthly givers if they would be willing to increase by$10 to be a part of it. And so we had a handful of individuals who had already been championing our organization in the community and were whether they a few were board members, a few were just community partners, and they came out and were just like, you know what, I think this is a really great idea. Would you mind if I like went on social media and talked about it? Is what one of our board members did. And I was like, you know what? You're on to something. What if we strategically had a few people do that? And they took the responsibility to also help us recruit donors.
SPEAKER_01Amazing.
SPEAKER_02And so we had within this month, and it was about a month and a half. Wait, no, two and a half months. August 15th to October 31st is when we ran the campaign. And so the first half of August, we really worked with a few individuals who are partners and board members to give them materials to talk about what the campaign was, talk about the legacy of our information, got them prepared. And then we did a pretty hard launch on August 15th on social media and newsletters. And what's really interesting is like I didn't think this was gonna get as much traction. We had set a goal of 25 new donors. I felt like that was really audacious. And I was like, even if we get 10, I will be happy. And so over that time period, like the first two days it was out, we got 15 new donors.
SPEAKER_01And I was like, wow, I was wondering what the momentum was gonna be like across. Okay, so 15 in the first like two days. Do you feel like knowing that? And of course I know the results, but do you feel like it could have been a shorter time period that that would have helped? Or do you think by having it across two and a half months was beneficial?
SPEAKER_02I think for us having it across two and a half months was good because it gave it enough time for people to let it sink in. And so kind of what our pattern looked like was it spiked and then it dipped in the middle and then it spiked again at the end. So it gave us there were like two peaks of individual, like of new donors, I would say.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Was it certain like comms that went out that you think? Okay, okay, you're nodding your head. Yes. What was said? Because I know everyone's like, wait, tell me what did you say in those emails?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I think it was a couple of different things. So I think the first one was very much the newsletter on that first blast was the most successful.
SPEAKER_01What did you say in that first email? What was the like oomph?
Early Surge And Campaign Cadence
SPEAKER_02It was a video from our CEO. I was like, what did we say? So we framed it as like an exclusive message from our CEO and co-founder Marcus Jackson. So we sent it out like it was a little kind of cryptic. It was like, hey, click this for a special invite or a special message from our CEO and co-founder Marcus Jackson. So, you know, it makes people like really want to like click on it. And then we did the same thing on social media, and I got so many positive responses from people, not only people who like were supporters and became donors, but people who also do this work and kind of understand the psychology of giving, were like, this was really creative and I liked it. And so, Marcus, in this reel, you can see it on our social media page at Urban Bridge Now. He first of all talked a little bit about this being our 10-year anniversary and showed a lot of gratitude for those who have come and support us already. And then was like, here's a way for those of you who might not already be giving or are involved, can get involved. And I think just having a person who so many people connect with come in and like do the personal invitation, right? It wasn't just a wall of text, it was a video that was curated to feel very personal and in touch.
SPEAKER_01So in the email, it was this like invite. They clicked, did they go to a landing page where the video was playing? Yes. Okay, so this was a special landing page for the 10 for 10.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01Is this page still up?
SPEAKER_02I think so. I actually it's on Vimeo, I think is how you say it. It was just a video that like I could embed in.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I see. Okay. Was there a special 10 for 10 page on the website?
SPEAKER_02We have like special pop-ups, but we didn't have like a specific like complete page. But we did like within our online giving platform where you can like set up recurring payments and things like that.
SPEAKER_01I see you use fundraise up.
SPEAKER_02We use fundraise up. We set up a special campaign in there. And so I was able to create like a unique link that I track all of the new donors. And so that link was strategically placed in a couple of places, like on the social media post and in the newsletter. And then we had a pop-up on our website that as soon as our page would load, it would show like the 10 for 10 campaign and them straight to that campaign page.
SPEAKER_01Perfect. Yep, that was the fundraise up pop-up.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm.
The CEO Video And Landing Flow
SPEAKER_01Yep. Okay, got it. Okay, beautiful. All right. Tell us. So we wanted 25 in two and a half months, and we got to 27. 27. I love it. It's amazing. From I'm just curious, after October till now, so now being 2026, have you seen a continued increase in monthly supporters?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so we've actually had a few more join us, probably about 10 more. So we're at this point now. We have around 75 monthly donors, which is amazing.
SPEAKER_01Congratulations.
SPEAKER_02Oh, thank you. Thank you. It's interesting because the last organization I worked for, we had two. I was like, I never ran a monthly giving campaign before. This was my first time doing that. I have a really strong background in grant writing and things like that. So this was a new also adventure for me as a development professional.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. How does it feel? Like two versus 75 is a big difference. Yeah. How do you feel that creates ripples internally for the organization to know that there's that support?
SPEAKER_02I think it was twofold. I think A, hitting the goal and exceeding it created a lot of positive energy, especially going into our end-of-year campaign. Having a big win before we're about to do another big push built a lot of positive energy in our organization, both for our development team and our programming team during a season that can be really stressful. From the finance side, I also know that our she's CAO, so she does both operations and finances, has loved seeing that unrestricted monthly giving that we can count on every month. She's like, this is amazing that we can just count on this to come in almost every month, you know, pending if somebody decides to change their giving. And then I've even had a few donors recently reach out to me that are like, hey, I actually want to increase my monthly gift. I want to do more than$10. Can you show me how to do that? And I was like, yeah, absolutely. Like, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_01You're like, yes, I definitely can. That's amazing. Do you find well, two questions? A, do you find that this type of campaign is something you want to do on an annual basis now?
SPEAKER_02Honestly, we've considered it. I don't know if we'll do it annually, but at least incrementally. So if that makes sense, maybe it's a every five-year anniversary campaign. Maybe it is like our ramp up to end of year. We're still talking about how consistently we want to do it. But I do think that there is success in continuing the momentum.
SPEAKER_01Yes. I mean, you know, obviously I'm a fan of recurring first and having it be like the forefront ask. Second question was Was the team nervous about having a monthly giving this 10 for 10 campaign in advance of an end-of-year campaign?
Results And Post-Campaign Growth
SPEAKER_02A little bit. I think there was concern that it would it might burn donors out before we start asking for big gifts at the end of the year. And how I framed it, I was like, A, it's a really great way to storytell. We focused on storytelling a lot within our campaign. And that is what the forefront of it was. We also focused on it within our end-of-year campaign. So I was like, we don't want every email we're sending out to feel like an ask. There needs to be gaps in between where we're just telling the stories of primarily the youth we've served and how this is building a legacy for the next 10 years. And then I was like, there are going to be people who they're getting to this point in the year. And first of all, they don't have the financial means to give a large end-of-year gift. And there is a demographic that I myself have fallen into when it gets close to the holidays, you're spending actually all your extra resources trying to go for gifts and travel and things like that. That there isn't the financial means to actually give a really large gift. So I was like, I think we can actually target a whole different demographic of people who want to support us when they have freer range of finances to start investing in a small way in an organization than asking them when they're being asked to invest money in a million other things in December.
SPEAKER_01Totally. Totally. Did you see any? Was there any difference year over year?
SPEAKER_02I think so. I think it's interesting because we did have one person who was a$10 monthly donor, and he ended up giving a large end-of-year gift. So this like got his foot in the door, and he's like, I thought this was really cool. And I saw this person that I know post about it on social media, and I looked up your organization and I thought it was amazing. And so yeah, this is a person who like didn't know any of us personally. He knew one of our champions.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02And he was like, I knew that if she was posting about it, then it was definitely gonna be worth it.
SPEAKER_01That third-party social proof is really powerful.
SPEAKER_02It is, it is, and that was that second wave. Yes, was we had two individuals who just have a large social influence, particularly within the philanthropy community.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02And both of them posted on social media telling about the importance of the work we do and why they invest in it themselves. And they were both also did a commitment to be monthly donors. So they were asking people to them.
SPEAKER_01Amazing. How did they was this on Instagram? Was this on LinkedIn? What was the platform that they chose?
SPEAKER_02A couple of different platforms. It was interesting to see where different ones actually, depending on the person's following, benefit more. We had one person he has a really large following on Instagram. That one picked up the most traction for him. And then a woman who supports us, she has a really large following on LinkedIn. And this is where the converted donor heard about our organization, Urban Bridge. And he's like, Yeah, I just signed up to do$10 a month. And was like, man, you know, I should go out for a tour. So then he came out for a tour.
SPEAKER_01Very cool.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And then after that, he committed to a major gift.
Morale, Finance, And Upgrades
SPEAKER_01Don't sleep on LinkedIn. This is the power. This is the power of not the traditional sense. We're going to be talking about this. I'll talk about this at the Monthly Giving Summit. We have a whole panel on the inspiration algorithm. And we have an expert that's coming on that works in the influencer space and how literally all of us have the power of influence. And you don't have to be an influencer in the terms that we've been taught of, which is like you have to have a million Instagram followers. No, it's very much like I actually got asked, which I was thrilled. Jess Ekstrom runs a company Headbands for Hope. And I am doing like an influencer post for them on their headbands. It's like a give one, get one kind of thing. That's awesome. And I was like, really? I qualify now? Like I'm that cool. But it's true, like within your community, whether it's a board member, somebody in the community, we all have our circles of influence. And so I love the idea of having these champions, giving them the information they needed. And then, yeah, people trust them and follow what they say. So that's amazing. What advice would you give to other nonprofits that are trying to mobilize or come up with this like champion concept?
SPEAKER_02Here's my recommendation. And this kind of is for the entire, the entire project is a like have a really good plan in place and have it structured to where you know when you're going to post and who's going to post what, because trying to do it just organically as you go is going to be more difficult. And you can also lose steam as a person, right? So just having some of it automated really, really helps us. The second I would say is specifically around the champions is identify people either within your organization, on your board, or have a connection to your organization that both A, care deeply about the work you're doing and B, have some sort of large social influence, whether that's social media or just personally.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02We were lucky that we have one of our team members who he does a lot of influencer work. And so he was the one who was willing to post about it. And then the woman who is a community supporter of us, she is very, very involved in the nonprofit space and has a large following on LinkedIn. And I reached out to her individually asking, would you be willing to make a post? Like, I was like, would you be a donor? But also, would you just be willing to make a post? And not only will I become a donor, I am going to post it on every social media platform I have.
SPEAKER_01Amazing.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's more than I could have ever asked for.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Did they post a photo or graphic or video that you gave them, or did they come up with something themselves?
SPEAKER_02They came up with something themselves. So what the one that our male influencer did on Instagram, he actually took a video at our facility. Amazing. It's called the Bridge Impact Center. So he did a video there, and that's where he talked about his own personal journey and how it connects with the work we're doing at Urban Bridge and why it's so deeply impactful to him. And then he's like, you know, I'm a team member of Urban Bridge and I'm actually becoming a monthly donor. So you should also become a monthly donor. I did the same thing. I am a monthly donor to my own organization because I care so much about it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And invited people to join via social media, got a few conversions.
Pre–Year-End Strategy And Storytelling
SPEAKER_01Love that. Yeah. Staff should absolutely post and share during these campaigns. That's a great nugget to share. This was years ago. This was like when I was just starting my business, like nine or eight years ago. I was working with an organization in Fargo called Unseen. And our like very grassroots attempt of creating like champions, kind of doing an influencer campaign, was I just looked at who followed them on Instagram. Yeah and people who had like some type of around like 5,000 followers. And I made a list of like 25 people and I sent I DM'd them and was like, hey, I noticed you're really passionate about and I looked to see when this last time they had like liked one of our posts and just DM'd them, was like, hey, we're playing to this campaign. You could create your own content, or we're happy to send you two photos and a video to share. And we got like 10 people to do it, and it surged the growth of following on the channel. So there are very grassroots ways to do this. And I think what's also super cool that you shared is your average gift landed above$10. Is that right?
SPEAKER_02Yes. So there is a feature within Fundraise Up. I'm sure most donation processing platforms have this where it will basically generate, based off of this person's interactions on other web pages, recommended gift numbers. And so So it pops up where within the monthly giving options, it says$10 at the top, but then there's others like$25,$35, or$25,$50, and$100. What's really interesting is our average gift was$35 a month because we had a lot of people who ended up selecting$25 or$50.
SPEAKER_01Amazing.
SPEAKER_02Which I would never have dreamed of. I was like, oh man,$10 a month is just like more than enough to me. But we had had this goal in mind of like, okay, this will at least bring in an additional$200 a month in revenue, but also give us a new list of donors that we can start interacting and cultivating. And now, I mean, with the increase of people even post-campaign, it was$550 additional revenue a month, but now we're seeing it's almost 700 plus.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. I know. And I love this case study because I think sometimes we always see the big stories of like 70,000 monthly donors, but it's like that's huge for you. And I want everyone to like set your own goal of what success can look like in iterating. I think there's so much potential. You guys have physical space. I don't know if there's volunteers that come in there. What are you thinking about as far as stewarding these new monthly donors so that their the retention stays high? Like, is there a plan in place for the retention side?
Social Proof And Influencer Champions
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. So we've done a couple of intentional touch points. One is we're going to be hosting an anniversary party in next week's fun! Yeah, so it's very much a stewardship first event. There will be an opportunity if they want to pledge to make something greater in the year, they can do that. But we created a video that tells the story of the last 10 years at Urban Bridge. It's pretty incredible. I can share it with you so you can link it. Cool. We will be screening that video, and it's like we've framed it as like this exclusive event that donors get to come in and they get to spend time with our team and talking about why this is important to them. And then they get to also be the first to see this video with us and screen it together. And so just kind of building that energy with them around like why this is important.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you're a part of it. You're making it possible. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And then later in the year, we'll also do a thank you campaign.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. Very cool, Reagan. I'm so stoked. I just want to be like, hi five across the screen. I would do some sort of campaign every year if I was. That would be my recommendation. Because then it becomes like a tradition and a theme. And it, and then the more people you have, now you can say, we have 75 now. Or by the summer, let's just say we have a hundred. And we're looking to get to our next 100. Like join us. And like now you have new champions that can come on and take the things that worked. And I think you could absolutely make it a tradition. And then you could also have a tradition for upgrades.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's a great idea. I love that. And I think it also, like, you know, we'll learn more about what does and doesn't work along the way and totally got the first opportunity under our belt to improve it next time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. Reagan, so cool. Where can I know people are going to want to ask you more questions and pick your brain? What's the best place for them to do that?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. So messaging me on LinkedIn works great. Reagan Mock is my LinkedIn, but I also have Instagram at ReaganMock.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. Perfect. Reagan, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story about Urban Bridge. Thrilled to have you and congratulations again. Thanks.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of Missions to Movement. If you enjoyed our conversation and found it helpful, I would love for you to take a moment to leave a review wherever you're listening. Your feedback helps us reach more change makers like you and continue bringing impactful stories and strategies to the show. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button too so you'll never miss an episode. And until next time, keep turning your mission into a movement.
