Team ChadHow Team Chad grew its monthly donor base by 567% with Amanda Nicholson
“Amanda’s insights and attention to detail helped us grow our monthly donor base by 567% since May.”
Emily shares how Amanda Nicholson’s thoughtful email campaigns helped Team Chad grow monthly donors, increase giving, and bring more guests to its 20th anniversary event.
Team Chad is a nonprofit that provides financial assisstance to cancer patients receiving treatment in Tennessee. As the Executive Director, Emily leads the work of building important relationships with beneficiaries and donors, and creating successful fundraising events that advance the organization’s mission.
The pressure of a high-stakes fundraising event
Team Chad had gone from hosting two fundraising events to one, which made the remaining event especially important. Emily wanted the summer event to be a success, but producing a thoughtful email series on top of everything else was a lot to take on.
With limited time and high stakes, she needed support that would keep donor communications engaging and purposeful without taking her away from the people at the heart of the organization: its donors and the families it serves.
“I decided to outsource our summer email series because I wanted our event to be a success. We had gone from two fundraising events to one, and the pressure felt high.”
- Emily
4 Month Partnership
1 Event Page
1 Donation Page
4 Re-engagement emails
4 Monthly Giving Campaign Emails
2 Gratitude Emails
6 Event Campaign Emails
2 Post-Event Emails
Implementing a Thoughtful Email Strategy
We partnered together to manage the summer email series and support Team Chad’s fundraising communications. From the beginning, it felt easy and collaborative, giving Emily confidence that the campaign was in good hands.
I brought careful attention to detail to every email, crafting messages that felt thoughtful, polished, and aligned with Team Chad’s goals. That meant Emily could spend less time managing the campaign herself and more time focusing on donors, event planning, and the families Team Chad serves.
The Process
We launched a 4-email campaign to re-engage Team Chad supporters. Emily had been emailing frequently, but not as often as she’d hoped to maintain relevance and keep engagement high.
After that, we ran 4 promotional emails for supporters to join The Home Team, Team Chad’s new monthly giving program. We focused on Team Chad’s impact, highlighting the tangible outcomes and ending with a heartfelt story from one of Team Chad’s former beneficiaries. In 30 days, Team Chad gained 2 volunteers and 4x’d The Home Team players!
We followed this with gratitude emails, a break in the calendar to cool off the audience, then launched the 20th anniversary celebration promotion emails.
Email Analytics at a Glance
I track email engagement to help determine the success of each campaign. The average email open rate for each of these campaigns is 50.32%, the average click-through rate is 13%, and the average email replies for both campaigns is 3.
Average Email Engagement
“Amanda makes onboarding easy and fun. Having Amanda on my team took a weight off, and I felt supported from our first conversation.”
-- Emily
567% increase in monthly donors. $130k raised.
“With Amanda’s help, our emails were thoughtful and polished, which freed me to spend my time on our donors and the families we serve.” - Emily
Since May, Team Chad has grown its monthly donor base by 567%. My email campaigns also increased monthly giving dollars and helped bring more guests to Team Chad’s 20th anniversary event—turning email from another task on Emily’s plate into a meaningful source of fundraising momentum.
The 20th anniversary event sold out VIP tickets, gained 5 new monthly donors, and raised $130,000 to continue supporting cancer patients and their families! I volunteered at the event, and it was truly magical to see everything come to life with so much support from the community.
Just as importantly, Emily gained the relief of having a trusted partner in her corner. With me handling the details and delivering mindful communications, Emily was free to focus her energy where it mattered most.