A template for successful events from Blue Cross
This year’s event, managed by ONE person(!), took a more intimate approach to fundraiser recruitment and fully utilized Tiltify’s unique fundraising features (polls, milestones, rewards, fundraiser incentives, and cause rewards) to deliver significantly more donations than Hallow Stream 22.
This year’s event, managed by ONE person(!), took a more intimate approach to fundraiser recruitment and fully utilized Tiltify’s unique fundraising features (polls, milestones, rewards, fundraiser incentives, and cause rewards) to deliver significantly more donations than Hallow Stream 22.
In no order, the following elements made this event a big success for Blue Cross:
- Tailored recruiting without immediate ask to fundraise.
- Ongoing relationships with previous fundraisers.
- Deep insights into how Blue Cross uses funds raised.
- Teaching fundraisers how to use Tiltify fundraising features and reminders at multiple touchpoints.
- Cool, quality fundraiser incentives tightly tied to cause impact points.
- Use of messaging center to align fundraiser achievement to both cause impact points, and incentives earned while motivating fundraiser to go for the next incentive.
- Cause rewards that fundraisers could use as rewards in their campaigns so donors received an item with their donation.
Tailored recruiting without immediate ask to fundraise
As an animal welfare charity, Thomas Martin, Virtual Events Officer, was aware that a great source of potential fundraisers included creators that featured their pets in their content. He was able to peruse social media and reach out to creators that seemed to be a natural fit for Blue Cross’s mission and the event’s theme. In initial conversations, Thomas focused more on evangelizing the mission of Blue Cross, instead of immediately asking people to fundraise. Once people seemed to understand the importance of the mission and expressed interest in helping, he let them know that there was a fundraising opportunity/asked them to fundraise.
This form of recruitment is very hard work, but again, that's where this approach pays dividends. It’s cherry-picking and finding people that are right for your cause.
Ongoing relationships with previous fundraisers
Hallow Stream 23 saw the return of several fundraisers from 22 and those repeat fundraisers could be seen throughout the top spots on the leaderboard for 23's. On the day Tiltify and Thomas connected to recap 23’s event, he was writing out handwritten thank you notes for 23’s fundraisers as he had done with 22’s participants the year before. Communication with 22’s fundraisers continued throughout the end of 22 and into 23 via Discord and other channels.
Deep insights into how Blue Cross uses funds raised
Part of the tailored recruiting process involves inviting potential fundraisers to join Blue Cross’s Discord where a lot of effort is put into sharing examples of how funds are used.
The central theme of Hallow Stream was that not only is the cost-of-living crisis in the UK causing negative consequences for pets as owners may no longer be able to afford them, but it is also especially impactful for black cats, who take on average 5 more days to rehome. These extra 5 days costs £45 in supplies and care. A major aspect of both recruiting fundraisers and driving home the impact of their efforts was tying people’s love of animals, especially cats, and the Halloween theme of black cats together.
In addition, this year’s event included a special sponsorship from elgato in which they covered travel expenses for 10 creators, made up of past fundraisers and a couple of high-profile potential fundraisers, to visit one of Blue Cross’s rehoming centers for animals where they spent the day learning how Blue Cross operates so that instead of fundraisers simply copy/pasting the impact points in their campaign bios, they really get a sense of the impact of their fundraising and donations such that they can speak personally and from experience about it. This idea was inspired by St. Jude inviting creators to visit their hospital to kick off PlayLive.
The top fundraiser for the event, Hozzerino, actually adopted a dog from Blue Cross!
Teaching fundraisers how to use Tiltify fundraising features and reminders at multiple touchpoints
Hallow Stream 23’s fundraising kit mentions Tiltify’s donor engagement tools with examples and goes into greater detail and instruction for using them compared to most fundraising kits that charities put together for their events. Reminders to use donor engagement tools are included in multiple fundraiser touchpoints such as event emails, discord, etc.
As a result of the Blue Cross’s efforts, 48% of donations for Hallow Stream 23 were attributed to polls, rewards, and milestones, with the average donation attributed to them 21% higher than donations not attributed to donor engagement tools.
Cool, quality fundraiser incentives tightly tied to cause impact points
While many charities set an incentive point for $100 because it’s an easy, round number, Blue Cross created fundraising incentives that would be delivered based on specific impact points for the cause and made sure fundraisers were aware of the special importance of these via various touchpoints, including Tiltify’s messaging center (see below).
For example, raising £45 to cover the extra cost of rehoming a black cat compared to other cats earned a Hallow-stream medal, £86 covers a day of expert care for a cat, and earned the fundraiser the same pin badge bundle that was a cause reward for donors, £190 is the cost for bringing a veterinarian to visit a cat housed by Blue Cross. A fundraiser that hit £190 received a cool Blue Cross Mouse pad. With Hallow Stream being tied to Halloween and its supernatural vibes, they thought it would be fun to create an impact point involving the number 13. They arrived at £325.00 as needed to feed 13 cats during their stay in Blue Cross shelters, and fundraisers that reached this accomplishment received a cozy Blue Cross Hooded Blanket. Finally, with special help from sponsors Noblechairs, and Overclockers, Blue Cross was able to send 10 gaming chairs to the first 10 fundraisers to hit £829.00, the total cost of rehoming a cat.
Use of message center to align fundraiser achievement to both cause impact points, and incentives earned, while motivating fundraiser to go for the next incentive
In addition to a “Thank you for creating a fundraising campaign” that was automatically sent to all fundraisers, Blue Cross used Tiltify’s messaging center to communicate with fundraisers when they reached the fundraising values aligned with their incentives and impact points, the importance of the impact point, inform them of the next incentive/impact point value and encourage them to continue their fundraising efforts to reach the next level. Thomas received feedback from multiple fundraisers that the notifications really motivated them to spend additional time fundraising in order to hit the next incentive/impact point.
Setting up automated messaging in Tiltify to go to our fundraisers and let them know how appreciated they are and all the cool things they can do in their fundraising really takes a load off our systems and knowing that everyone that comes through Tiltify will receive those is just fantastic.
In closing
Blue Cross has ambitious plans for nurturing relationships with previous fundraisers to they also noted that Hallow Stream campaigns featured use of Tiltify’s new auction functionality and a $1,000 donation match. They will be evangelizing these fundraiser and donor-centric features for next year’s event.
Note: If you’re interested in learning more about this event from the fundraiser perspective, our community team also interviewed fundraiser SariaSlays about her team campaign, “Screamapalooza”, that took place as part of Hallow Stream 23.