Native Hope Case Study: A story about growth and awareness

Native Hope’s Goliath

In 2017, Native Hope generated 85,991 new leads, mainly around the topic of sex trafficking. And 85,092 (99%) were from Facebook posts and ads.

Why is that a problem?

They don’t fight sex trafficking.

Native Hope is a 501(c)(3) organization that exists to address the injustice done to Native Americans. They share Native stories, provide educational resources, and assist Native communities.

Native Hope used a marketing agency tasked with bringing in new leads and, technically, that agency fulfilled those goals, but the obvious challenge then became turning those leads into donors, which (spoiler alert) never happened.

Those leads were generated off a topic that doesn’t actually relate to any direct fundraising that Native Hope was doing.

But the agency never thought to bring that up as it makes their metrics look better and they weren’t accountable for turning those leads into donors.

To start 2018, they were sitting on 85,000+ leads that had little-to-no interest in their fundraising efforts and had no way of generating new leads, other than paying for them on Facebook.

A rich resource library 

TThey built a comprehensive resource library by creating content aligned with their mission and targeted keywords. After a year of crafting downloadable eBooks, pillar pages, and blog content, they established a rich repository.

The content covers the history of Native American life and culture, emphasizing core keywords. It includes text, videos, external links, and downloadable resources. They then addressed contemporary Native American life, shedding light on realities and traumatic events.

The final piece focuses on the future of Native American life, inspiring readers to contribute. It highlights Native Hope's efforts, detailing actions to combat community issues and inspire the next generation for positive change.

Nurturing leads

Then came the email communication flows that took the new leads from this content and nurtured them with more stories, educational resources, and relevant fundraising offers. The goal of these communication flows was to turn leads into donors and one-time donors into monthly sustainers.

One of the value-adds of a content-based approach to donor nurturing is that you can see which resources donors are actively reading and which are turning one-time donors into monthly sustainers. 

Having a variety of resource offerings to supplement your emails asking donors to give can be a great way to keep them engaged and motivated to support your mission. 

New Website

Lastly, they made the decision to completely revamp their website. They streamlined their main navigation, simplified the flow of each website page, added more buttons that lead to content or fundraising opportunities, and even created a fully automated chatbot to help engage site visitors.

On the Native Hope homepage, they have made it very simple and clear to the user what their mission is, how someone can learn more, and present a simple offer to donate now. 

Click here to view their full website