Forever Projects reached new audiences despite the pandemic, and used segmentation to nurture supporters.
“Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.” - Helen Keller
We agree! Teamwork makes the dream work! 🧑🤝🧑
It’s true in (almost) every context. Collaboration is key in fundraising. When two (or more) parties get together as one, magic happens. And who doesn’t like a little bit of magic in their lives? You can do so much more as a team than as an individual. You share ideas, you share stories, and most of all… you make things happen. The perfect example of collaboration done right is the ever-impactful Forever Projects.
Forever Projects is laser-focused on sharing the love - building structures and systems that work for everyone, making it easy for people to donate and spread awareness.
Rather, person by person, family by family, they want to change lives. Using Raisely has helped them promote wonderful community fundraising ideas that have taken this to the next level. Let’s take a deeper look into a charity whose main currency is hope.
Who are Forever Projects?
Forever Projects are changing the lives of Tanzanian families forever. Notice the wordplay?
You see, it’s the words, the stories, and the people themselves that make this possible through Forever Projects. Storytelling is important when spreading awareness.
They provide nutrition for children in Tanzania, and empower families to create a self-sustaining future through training on nutrition, health, and business setup.
In other words, they want to break the cycle of poverty.
Yass! Go, Forever Projects. 💪
Raisely’s Content Marketer, Georgie Moore interviewed Mark Dombkins, Co-Founder of Forever Projects to find out more about this grass roots non-profit.
Let’s go back to 2010, where it all began.
Mark, who is a maths teacher by trade, moved to Tanzania with his wife and two children in 2010 to adopt three more children.
Sounds simple enough, right? 😅
It all started while watching a documentary about the plight of malnourished and abandoned children.
They glanced at their healthy boy sleeping beside them.
Just like that they knew they had to do something about it. The choice was simple: they were off to Tanzania! They had to find a way to make as many children as possible feel safe.
The solution: To work ahead of the problem.
In Tanzania they realised the importance of empowering women in some of the world's most challenging circumstances to live with dignity and hope. They had to reach women at a point before they had to make those heartbreaking choices.
And that’s where Forever Projects was born.
The premise is simple.
Here’s what they do:
- 🍼Life: They give formula to malnourished babies with no access to milk.
- 👚 Dignity: They help women meet their basic needs (bedding, clothes, etc.)
- 📋 Training: They train women to better understand health and disease prevention.
- 💰 Income: They coach women to create their own source of income in their community.
Here’s how they do it:
- They raise money through community fundraising, using the Raisely platform.
- They tell the stories of their supporters’ and donors’ journey.
- They use these stories to spread awareness.
“Imagine if you could tangibly help a mama feed her newborn baby, build a business, and walk out of poverty. Imagine the smile on her face as she realises that someone has chosen to say I see you, you’ve got this, and we’re in this together.”
A growing community
Storytelling and strong relationships - these are Forever Projects superpowers.
The power of people
Everything comes right back down to people. Focusing on connection, Forever Projects build active teams to grow the community - and it’s been a big part of their success!
They start by identifying who can be a team leader in their community, and helping them understand how leading a team would be great for them and their people.
“So it might be, a fitness instructor, for example. They’re running these virtual personal training sessions remotely, and you know, it's the second year of the pandemic. It's getting old, so we show up and help them solve their problems.
We may have only made contact with one person, but through that person, 20 people go on to raise $9,000, so that's one $9,000 of our $175,000 campaign total.
There’s nothing like the accountability of a peer.”
The power of a story
Forever Projects share the stories of their community from not only how they are raising the money through their fundraiser, but also why they are doing it. It is through personal motivation and connection that others are impacted and that the ideas are spread.
Using their website as their home base, they have a place for the stories to live and to be shared. Through Raisely, they have helped to share those stories and connect with people on a much larger scale, while still inviting them into that same mission.
By sharing the journeys of their supporters and donors, they encourage others to do the same.
“Everyone’s got something in their hands they can use – their time, talent or money, to help with the cause.”
The more people see the more they do.
What’s your Kilimanjaro?
The ‘What’s Your Kilimanjaro’ campaign started with a man named Andrew who was raising money for a different Raisely campaign. Andrew decided to climb a local hill of 400 metres elevation 20 times a week.
That was his own Kilimanjaro.
His own campaign.
He created a page on Raisely, invited people to get behind him, and soon his community joined him to raise $14,000, which his company then matched.
Forever Projects were then able to take Andrew and his family to visit the work in Tanzania.
After that, ‘What’s your Kilimanjaro?’ was born – a way for everyone to do their own version of this challenge.
🏃♀️ Run a marathon, raise money.
🧗 Climb a mountain, raise money.
Move in any way, shape or form… raise money!
They wanted to use this idea as a community fundraiser to get as many people on board as possible.
What's Your Kilimanjaro? Help change lives forever ♡ - 23 March 2022 - Watch Video
Mt. Kilimanjaro is 5,895m in elevation and involves a 62km trek to the top.
Using the numbers, they created a simple premise for their campaign:
- Choose your challenge (walk, swim, run, etc.) to do the distance or elevation.
- Sign up on your own or as a team.
- Get supported (100% of every dollar helps families in Tanzania).
- Create change to help women break the cycle of poverty.
“With more than double the number of signups and participants, we’ve raised $500,000 in 3 years. Raisely has supported us to go where we’ve needed to go as we’ve evolved.”
How Covid shone a light on fundraising
Covid hasn’t put a halt to fundraising. (Thank goodness.)
If anything, it’s given people more of a chance to find other ways to connect when they couldn’t connect in person.
Just because you can’t see someone, or go to their location, doesn’t mean you can’t help.
Forever Projects marketed the ‘What’s Your Kilimanjaro’ campaign to a B2B audience. Tweaking their messaging, they shifted from “Hey come and help Tanzanian women” to a personalised “Hey! Could your staff use some purpose and connection? Or some physical, mental wellbeing? We can solve that problem for you!”
Throughout it all, Forever Projects refused to allow Covid to make them feel like victims.
Instead of focusing on what was out of their control, they looked for unique opportunities to make positive changes.
It’s been an interesting time. A hard time.
But never before have people searched for more meaning, and a way to find purpose and connection.
Supporting the supporters
What makes Forever Projects stand out is that they support their supporters.
How?
Flexibility
Supporters have time and freedom to create their campaigns. Hey, it takes time to run 62km for most of us!
Connection
Forever Projects send personal messages through the supporters’ journey from signup to challenge completion. Using Raisely has helped them scale and increase efficiencies with automations, but still remain human.
Celebration
There is a strong belief in celebrating together. Because doing good feels good.
And who doesn’t like to celebrate? 🎉
Segmentation
By segmenting their emails to a super niche audience, Forever Projects takes nurturing their supporters to the next level.
Instead of blasting the same messages to all their donors and fundraisers, they instead tap into the motivation behind each audience to personalise the communication.
Example:
Auntie Dot (your favourite aunt, duh) donates to you for doing your challenge.
The “you’re doing great, sweetie!” is shining bright on your dashboard, but when you speak to her later you realise… she doesn’t remember why you’re doing the challenge in the first place! She just thinks you’re incredibly brave and fit. (Which you are, of course).
She’s donated. Great!
And maybe the first email Dot gets from Forever Projects is a simple ‘Hey, thanks for donating’.
But here’s where it gets interesting: the next email she gets (the follow-up) is tailored to her.
She doesn’t remember who we are (remember?), but she definitely knows you! So, we’d thank her for donating to you, not us.
It's about sending a message to say, “look what she did! Isn’t your niece great? And oh, by the way, thank you - it’s because of people like you, that we can have this impact!.”
Yay, Auntie!
It always comes back to the cause to show how much of an impact their funds have had. The challenge is great, but the reason behind doing it is even better.
Join the community and change someone’s life FOREVER. Do good, and feel good. Visit Forever Projects to donate, raise money, or simply spread awareness.
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Co-founder and senior writer at Pencil + Crown. Experienced copywriter and workplace wordsmith, EmJ brings her love affair with language to every task.
