A 12-month roadmap the Chron's & Colitis team could get behind
THE CONTEXT
Crohn’s & Colitis is the UK’s leading charity, for people affected by Crohn;s and Colitis. We proudly partnered with them in 2023, to assess their digital fundraising programme and to shape a clear direction for growth.
WHAT WE DID
We focused on three things: protect income that's at risk, make supporter journeys audience-first, and get the organisation comfortable with fundraising. Rather than a wish-list, we sequenced the work into what would protect and grow income fastest — and framed it so that individual giving had a clear, defensible seat at the table.
We ran a rapid digital fundraising audit: conducting a paid media audit, conducting stakeholder interviews. More than 50 growth actions were ultimately recommended, to be taken over a 12M period, with key recommendations including:
an overhaul of their Search structure, representing £40K+ additional income potential for the same spend - alongside a scaled virtual event approach on Meta, to grow their already heavily-positive outcomes
an email re-engagement series, with £40K annual potential in their Membership audiences alone and as much as £1M across products
a gradual tiered membership product, representing £30K+ additional annual income, and webform test and learn approach to increase conversion
THE CHALLENGE
With a successful membership programme and virtual event function driving highly effective fundraising at scale, we quickly realised that most growth opportunities lay in thoughtful paid media optimization, reengaging valuable lapsed audiences and upscaling top-performing activations. This required a deep understanding of their Paid Media function, multi-year product returns, and interconnected journeys. No mean feat, given the scale of their programme and speed with which a plan was needed.
OUTPUTS & DELIVERABLES
A digital fundraising audit (activity recap, insights, opportunities).
A prioritised 12-month action plan across membership, individual giving, email and paid media.
Specific, testable recommendations: from audience-first SEM journeys to an RFM-based segmentation model.
THE RESULT
A tremendously satisfied client, who said: “The 12M roadmap went above and beyond what we expected, and was very positively received across teams, who felt it got under the hood of our operations surprisingly fast, and identified clear, sensible directions. We are already coming together, in working groups, to act on the tangible roadmap – and look forward to making 2024 a transformative year for digital fundraising.”"