How the Nebraska Humane Society Elevated Participant Engagement with OneCause

Background

Background

As the fifth oldest humane society in the nation, the Nebraska Humane Society’s (NHS) mission to educate, shelter, and encourage adoption and responsible pet ownership has stood the test of time. Since 1875, NHS has annually touched the lives of more than 200,000 people and over 24,000 animals with their message of compassion and humane treatment of living creatures.  

Challenge

Challenge

As NHS’s annual peer-to-peer fundraiser, the Margre Durham Walk & Dog Fest, engages pet lovers in the Omaha community. But as the event scaled in size, their fundraising software couldn’t keep up.  

NHS knew they needed an efficient and sustainable way to communicate information to their donors and drive donations in support of the mission, while maintaining the flexibility to expand.  

“Our old software couldn’t grow with us,” said Gordon Krentz, NHS Donor Relations and Events Director. “We started looking for a fundraising solution to help us communicate better while increasing our number of participants, and that’s how we found OneCause.” 

Solution

Solution

Backed by the OneCause Peer-to-Peer software, the Margre Durham Walk & Dog Fest offered a smoother participant experience and more tail-wagging fun!

Their keys to event success included:

  • Efficient Participant Communication
  • Elevated Engagement and Personalization
  • Comprehensive Data Visibility and Donor Integration
  • Award-Winning Customer Support

Efficient Participant Communication

The Nebraska Humane Society wanted to give their participants a dog-gone good time, so effectively communicating details about the day was a must. Utilizing the Peer-to-Peer software’s email capabilities, NHS quickly and effectively sent out event information, reminders, and thank you messages after the event.

“With the software, we cut our print cost and helped save the trees. That was big for us,” Gordon said.

Preset communication could be customized within the software and communications could be pre-written and sent out with the push of a button, helping the NHS team spend more time taking care of the shelter while keeping participants engaged and informed. Also, it allowed participants to respond instantly to a virtual message, get their questions answered, and be encouraged to quickly and easily donate.

“Communicating through paper caused a huge lag between mailing out information and hearing back from supporters. With OneCause, I could easily communicate with our participants and amp up the excitement around seeing the shelter and raising money at the event,” Gordon said.

The NHS is excited to use even more features to spark giving in future events, such as head-to-head challenges and other creative team competitions to engage the community and drive giving.

Elevated Engagement and Personalization

Engagement was a top priority for NHS, and knowing that there is so often a lull in donations leading up to a big event, Gordon wanted to connect with his participants.

The OneCause Peer-to-Peer software was the perfect solution. Providing a suite of engaging features, participants could personalize their fundraising pages with why the NHS mission is important to them, include a personal message, and showcase pictures of their pets while maintaining the NHS branding.

But that’s not all. The features also let participants rally fundraising teams, get featured on a leaderboard, and receive unique prizes for hitting fundraising benchmarks, such as T-shirts, leashes, and branded welcome mats. They could track their progress in the participant dashboard, provide matching donations, and easily share about NHS’s cause on social media. Additionally, participants earned badges for hitting fundraising milestones, and could participate in secondary events and enter into drawings for additional swag.

“With our old software, we struggled to engage participants. With OneCause, we get to not only engage with our donors but have fun with them,” Gordon said.

Comprehensive Data Visibility and Donor Integration

To continue to grow their fundraiser, NHS monitors campaign performance to make more informed decisions in the years to come.

“A lot of reporting is already done within the software. It saves us a lot of time,” Gordon said.

Navigating the back end of the software to pull these reports is quick and simple thanks to the user-friendly interface. The NHS team can seamlessly find the data they are looking for without hassle or headache. Pulling data such as donor age, donation amount, and donor location is easy within the OneCause software and seamlessly integrates into their CRM.

Award-Winning Customer Support

With a large-scale event, the NHS team knew they could trust the OneCause team to ensure things ran smoothly. Whenever there was a question, the OneCause support team was always prepared to offer a solution that utilized the software to its fullest extent.

“It’s amazing to know people at OneCause are invested in my fundraiser and my success. I love the relationship I have with the support team – they always respond quickly and find good solutions for me,” Gordon said.

For the Nebraska Humane Society, the Peer-to-Peer software sparks a new sense of engagement, getting everyone excited about raising more money for our furry friends.

“There’s a sense of community, not only for our Omaha community but the animal community, too,” Gordon added.

Results

Results

With the power of Peer-to-Peer, the Nebraska Humane Society:

  • Hit 110% of their fundraising goal
  • Engaged 490+ participants
  • Supported 43 teams registered

Connect with a Cause

To learn more about Nebraska Humane Society, please visit their website.

Wrapping Up!

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