Correlation between video and fundraising success

Telling your story matters much more than you think. It especially does when you’re running a digital fundraising campaign.

From a population set of campaigns (outliers removed), we picked the top 15 highest grossing campaigns that CauseVox has powered.

In total, this sample set raised $1,203,072 in donations with an average raise of $80,205.

After examining what type of media was embedded on their fundraising sites, we found that over 90% of these campaigns used video. The campaign that raised the least did not use a video; they used a static photo instead. There is a strong positive correlation between using videos and raising more funds.

As related to the type of video, the top three highest grossing campaigns had impact stories. None focused on detailing the nonprofit’s programs, but rather focused on the impact of their work.

Impact stories share the unique story of one individual whose life has been touched by the nonprofit’s work. In these videos there is often a clear before and after that builds tension, hooks viewers and demonstrates what’s at stake.

For online fundraising campaigns, the average length of a campaign video is 121 seconds.