Be The Match Foundation

Project Description

Be The Match connects patients with their donor match for a life-saving marrow or umbilical cord blood transplant. With a small percentage of participants fundraising and using online tools to raise money for the organization’s Run/Walk series, Be The Match partnered with Charity Dynamics to develop a three-year strategic plan for participant engagement and fundraising growth.

Project Details

Client Be The Match
Skills Strategy, Engagement
View BeTheMatch.org

Challenge

Few participants were fundraising actively (99 percent were raising less than $100)
Online tools were under-utilized by event participants (only 8 percent sending emails; only 27 percent were updating their personalized fundraising pages)
Staffing limitations and lack of chapter-based structure hindered event growth

Approach

A Charity Dynamics Consultant conducted comprehensive data analysis, which included a thorough review of business rules to better understand current business practices and supporting technology
Completed a competitive analysis, stakeholder interviews, and benchmarking to obtain a 360-degree view of the event’s current situation
Used findings to develop core recommendations, which included: reposition the event’s brand; upgrade technology; invest in staffing; expand the number of events offered in the series; and create a virtual fundraising platform

Outcome

Recommendations led to a complete rebranding of the program—from ‘Be the One Run’ to ‘Be The Match Walk+Run’—in an effort to make the event more inclusive of walkers, and ensure it was more closely aligned with the organization’s brand.
Follow-on work led to a subsequent redesign, and redeployment of the TeamRaiser website, complete with new messaging in time for the 2013 event season.
Created an Executive Task Force to build internal buy-in; assisted with a presentation to the organization’s Executive Board of Directors, outlining site expansion and related staffing plans.

See The Result