Case Study: Global Fund for Women responds to Typhoon Haiyan with Soapbox Engage
We partnered with Soapbox Engage on a recent project with client Global Fund for Women - this case study was authored by Tim Forbes of PICnet and is posted here with his permission.
In November 2013, Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines, killing more than 6,000 and devastating villages and towns across the island nation. Global Fund for Women, a leader in advancing the rights of women and girls worldwide, moved quickly to empower their grantees in the Philippines to address the need. Using Soapbox Engage, Global Fund for Women achieved its most successful online giving effort ever in response to a crisis. Online contributions totalled more than $75,000 from donors around the world, helping devastated communities rebuild and safeguarding women and children in the aftermath of the storm.
Fast appeal, available on any device
In the face of the crisis, time was critical in crafting an appeal and online channel for donations. With Soapbox Engage’s online fundraising and content management tools, both tasks were straightforward and quick.
“We have always found it easy to create articles in Soapbox, and donate pages can be created in about fifteen minutes,” said Laura Shapiro, Director of Online Communications.
In addition to quick creation, all Web pages were mobile-friendly, reaching supporters on any mobile device and enabling donors to respond quickly to the time-sensitive appeal from anywhere.
Maximizing contributions through flexible payment choices
Global Fund for Women’s supporters span the globe, from those living in communities with limited access to credit cards to regions dominated by smartphone use. To maximize contribution opportunities, Global Fund for Women needed to ensure that alternative payment methods were accessible to its supporter community, and easy on any device.
With Soapbox Engage, Global Fund for Women’s donors were able to support their crisis response using PayPal, a valuable payment method both for individuals in developing countries where only 7% of adults have credit cards and for smartphone users wishing to type fewer characters to log into their PayPal account rather than entering a longer credit card string.
“16% of our Philippine Crisis Fund online gifts came via PayPal,” explained Shapiro. “The option is hugely popular with online donors, with 20% of our online gifts coming via PayPal since we launched that option.”
Lowering overhead with increased data efficiency
Crisis response creates spikes in data traffic, often paralyzing organizations from being able to make informed decisions while overwhelmed with taxing overhead activities. It was critical for Global Fund for Women to be efficient in handling the surge of supporter data when targeting donors, reporting on progress, and scaling success.
With Soapbox Engage, online transactions were immediately stored in Salesforce.com, their constituent management database implemented by Idealist Consulting. The Soapbox Engage real-time integration with Salesforce.com provided a unified Web and back-office solution that resulted in greater efficiency during the crisis, giving staff more time to focus on their mission rather than the mechanics of the technology.
Growing supporter lists and rebuilding communities
“We had a stronger response to the Philippine Crisis Fund in terms total dollars raised than to any other crisis appeal,” said Camille Matson, Annual and Online Giving Officer and fund coordinator
Online contributions through Soapbox Engage totalled more than $75,000 from more than 460 donors worldwide, with an average online contribution of $170 and gifts ranging from $10 to $10,000.
The immediacy of Global Fund for Women’s online response was critical to their fundraising success, with online donations representing 94% of the number of gifts received. Even better, more than one-third of online donors were new supporters, allowing Global Fund for Women to grow its supporter list to aid in their future crisis response efforts.
Through the success of its online fundraising using Soapbox Engage, Global Fund for Women is empowering communities to rebuild from one of the most severe storms on record. Funds from the campaign are being invested in emergency relief efforts and long-term recovery operations, specifically targeting women and girls who are shown to be disproportionately affected by natural disasters.
About the author: Tim Forbes is VP of Products and Marketing for PICnet, the makers of Soapbox Engage, a suite of nonprofit online engagement tools integrating with Salesforce.com.
