Explore how Sweat with Pride leveraged Funraisin's powerful platform to create a highly personalized, engaging fundraising experience that led to record-breaking results.
Leading the campaign revamp for Burnett Foundation Aotearoa—a leading Rainbow Sexual Health organisation—was Francesca Seedhouse, Fundraising Manager, and Ben Parsonson, CEO at Mix Digital—an agency who specialize in designing, building and growing organizations’ online assets.
"The transition to the Funraisin platform has been incredibly smooth and efficient, allowing us to enhance our fundraising capabilities and better engage with our community. It's been a fantastic upgrade for our organization."
- Francesca Seedhouse, Fundraising Manager, Burnett Foundation Aotearoa
22%↑
increase in
Activation Rate
37%↑
increase in
Average Gift
41%↑
increase in
Self Donations
The challenge: Sustaining growth in a post-pandemic world
Launched in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweat with Pride participants are asked to work up a sweat for at least 21 minutes every day in June and fundraise for life-changing support services.
It’s a campaign that garnered huge support from its very first year.
"We launched during the pandemic, which actually propelled the campaign a little bit because everybody was stuck in their houses, bored with nothing to do, and they were looking for something fun and engaging to get behind and a sense of community."
- Francesca
This context is key to understanding the campaign's growth trajectory, and the challenges it faced, as the world began to return to normalcy.
Despite initial success, the campaign faced new challenges:
- Declining activation rates despite growing participant numbers
- Need for improved supporter experience to boost engagement
- Desire for more tools to help fundraisers succeed
- Requirement for better administrative efficiency and visibility over the supporter journey
"There was a bit of a hypothesis that maybe we'd reached our cap, and we couldn't grow it any further. This year was an opportunity for us to try and test that theory, whether we could keep growing it."
- Francesca
Creative concept: The Perspirational Trainers
The Sweat with Pride campaign introduced an innovative concept with four distinct "Perspirational Trainers" - Björn Ready, Greta Moveon, Vera Strong, and Wanda Farr. Each trainer embodied a vibrant drag persona, complete with a unique personality, tone, style, and color scheme. This creative approach set the stage for a highly personalized fundraising experience.
Personalized supporter journey
Participants embarked on their fundraising journey by selecting their preferred trainer during registration. This choice shaped their entire experience, with the chosen trainer's style consistently applied across all touchpoints. For instance, selecting Vera Strong meant encountering her yellow-branded styling throughout the registration process, dashboard, emails, and fundraising pages. Not only that, each trainer had their own series of welcome and encouragement related video sequences that were updated throughout the campaign lifecycle.
This cohesive approach created an immediate personal connection and maintained engagement throughout the campaign.
Engaging supporter pages
Funraisin's platform transformed participant pages into vibrant hubs of activity and motivation. Veteran participants were recognized with achievement badges showcasing their history and cumulative fundraising totals. Integration with fitness apps like Fitbit and Strava allowed easy logging of daily exercise. A blog-style update feature enabled participants to share photos and text updates, turning their pages into personal journals of their Sweat with Pride experience.
“Querying the members table gave us access to hundreds of data points that could be used to personalize the participant experience more than ever before”
- Ben Parsonson, CEO, Mix Digital
Gamification: Raise the Rainbow
To keep participants motivated, the campaign featured the custom "Raise the Rainbow" reward system. As fundraising goals were met, a rainbow gradually came to life through smooth animations, powered by Lotte files. Real-time progress updates provided instant gratification for achievements. Participants could unlock tangible rewards like tote bags and sweatshirts at key milestones, adding a physical dimension to their digital accomplishments. Ben and the team from Mix Digital made great use of the inbuilt Developers module to add their magic into the fundraising experience!
Community and competition
Funraisin's features fostered a sense of community and friendly competition. Custom leaderboards for different groups - such as schools, workplaces, and friends/whānau - encouraged friendly rivalry and team spirit. Integrated social sharing tools made it easy for participants to share their progress and rally support on social media platforms, amplifying the campaign's reach and impact.
"We were able to implement features and customizations that were previously impossible."
- Francesca
Custom solutions for unique challenges
The platform's flexibility enabled creative solutions to unique challenges. A custom tracking system was developed to accurately capture and display progress towards the campaign's 21-minute daily exercise goal. Additionally, a dashboard-based reward claiming system streamlined the distribution process, reducing administrative workload while ensuring prompt delivery of earned incentives to participants.
Seamless support and communication
Behind the scenes, Funraisin's platform facilitated smooth operations and timely support. Integration with Campaign Monitor allowed for automated, personalized email communications tailored to each participant's activity and milestones. The platform's admin features enabled efficient troubleshooting, with administrators able to view the exact user experience by logging in as individual supporters. A comprehensive knowledge base further enhanced support capabilities, allowing for swift resolution of common queries and improving overall response times.
“The platform has allowed us to streamline processes and reduce the overall administrative workload.”
- Francesca
The result: Broken records and boosted engagement
By leveraging Funraisin's flexible platform, Sweat with Pride was able to create a highly engaging, personalized fundraising experience and the result were phenomenal. It’s a wholly more sustainable campaign with key performance indicators like activation rates and self donation on the rise. This takes the pressure off acquisition and helps to provide sustained growth.
"The flexibility and creativity that Funraisin offers have been game-changers for us."
- Ben
Looking ahead, the Burnett Foundation Aotearoa is well-positioned for continued growth. With the initial platform migration and UX setup complete, future campaigns can focus on further optimizing the fundraising experience and refining processes to ensure sustained success.
Sweat with Pride is a vibrant example of how much more can be achieved when you combine great fundraising technology with creative campaign strategies.
For charities looking to elevate their fundraising efforts and create more impactful supporter experiences, the Burnett Foundation Aotearoa's success with Funraisin serves as an inspiring blueprint.
