How the New England Nordic Ski Association Raised over $50,000

Rob Wu
June 7, 2011
12:00 am

“Having CauseVox take care of the mechanics of the drive allowed me to focus more on the message and spreading the word.” – Patrick Cote, NENSA

This case study discusses how the New England Nordic Ski Association (NENSA), raised over $50,000 for their 2011 Annual Fund through their online fundraising campaign. In addition, their campaign strategy, techniques, results, and lessons learned are discussed in detail.

About NENSA
The New England Nordic Ski Association is the Olympic development organization for cross-country skiing in New England as well as the umbrella for most of the organized Nordic skiing events in the region. NENSA hosts over 50 events and more than 20 clinics for skiers and coaches at venues across the Northeast. NENSA has five full-time staff members that are committed to developing the organization.

The Annual Fund Campaign
NENSA’s Annual Fund is a tradition dating back to 1996 and has been since 2007. In prior years, the online presence fundraising campaign has been created and updated in-house, a time-consuming process for the Executive Director of NENSA.

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

- Recruitment – NENSA targeted key supporters within their community to create fundraising pages. The two most successful examples of these were an influential coach and an athlete recently named to the US Ski Team. The coach was able to reach out to families he had served for several years and make the connection between the support NENSA provides for him directly to the athletes he served. The athlete was able to reach out primarily to friends, family and other supporters who were introduced to NENSA and made the connection with their Annual Fund drive.

- Timing – For the past twelve years, NENSA has run its fundraising campaign annually and launching their campaign at the same time every year helped supporters understand the consistency of the event.
- Mixed Media – NENSA also unveiled a new video featuring their competitive programs using the easy YouTube plugin on the CauseVox platform. This provided an additional incentive late in the campaign for users to visit the site

- Communications – NENSA’s email newsletter, Twitter, and Facebook page were the primary components of raising awareness about the their campaign. NENSA utilized these social media outlets as well as their promotional video to help drive users to their donation portal, which directly helped them meet their donation goal.

Campaign Results
By the end of their month-long campaign, NENSA raised over $50,000 ($20,020 online) through their personalized CauseVox fundraising site.

Key metrics of the campaign include (rounded figures):

Fundraising pages that raised $10 or more: 10
Highest amount raised on fundraising page: $3,500
Average funds raised per page: $664
Average donation size: $253
Median donation size: $50
Total number of donations: 219

Lessons Learned

- The success of a fundraising campaign should not just be measured by the amount of donations. Measuring the online presence and reach, which were enhanced through mixed and social media, of the campaign is equally as important. Using a fundraising platform frees up crucial time to focus on strategy and spreading the message
- A progress bar with automated updates gives donors a sense of their impact towards the campaign goal. This visual representation of their hard work up until that point in time serves as an excellent motivator to keep pushing for donations.