Case Study

The Impact of Social Media Fundraising
 On Epilepsy 
Foundation’s Digital Transformation

March 14, 2023
Overview

Epilepsy Foundation (EF) is working toward a digital-driven network to deliver their mission. This is accomplished through a number of initiatives focused on one thing: knowing their supporters. Guess how they’re doing it?

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PROJECT RESULTS

90%

Net New Donors

$782,294

Raised

439%

Avg. ROAs
Quote Mark

Nearly 5% of my annual revenue was coming from Facebook and I had zero insight into what was actually going on there. Even with 3-4k active fundraising campaigns at any given time, we had no reporting capability, no way to organize it & no way to interact.

Geoff DeLizzio
—
Chief Development Officer
THE CHALLENGE

The Campaign Challenge

He will tell you himself: Geoff and his team were building a strong Facebook community. But there were two problems: he had zero insight into why or how it was working, and his team couldn’t efficiently manage the growth. And eventually, it stopped.

Time to get creative.


Epilepsy Foundation wanted three things:
Better, more actionable data.
Better, more actionable data.
Greater insight into supporter motivations.
Greater insight into supporter motivations.
Efficiency to do this at scale.
Efficiency to do this at scale.
Quotation Mark

As a nonprofit, we have to think more entrepreneurial. With GoodUnited, we can start small, try different things, and adjust our investment over time. We have been able to build a greater program because of the trend data we track.

Geoff DeLizzio
—
Chief Development Officer
THE APPROACH

The Campaign Approach

Epilepsy Foundation, meet GoodUnited (GU). Like GU, Epilepsy Foundation believed that sustainable growth comes from testing, adjusting, learning, and application. A circle of continuous refinement. And it’s paying off.

With GoodUnited’s technology, services, and data analytics, Epilepsy Foundation has seen (*ahem* and continues to see) incremental growth in their social fundraising program. Gaining approximately 90% net new supporters? Staggering. Building a sustainable relationship with them? Mission critical.

GoodUnited implemented conversational intelligence through Facebook’s native tool, Messenger, to help to engage supporters in a new way—a crucial strategy to gather monumental insight into who they are and why they give. With this data, GoodUnited was folded into a growing tech stack for Epilepsy Foundation to shift their overarching fundraising approach to digital-first. Geoff’s long-term goal? Combine the data gained from each source into a data lake. Why? This will help to provide a meaningful experience for every supporter no matter how they engage—social, website, email, search, all of it. Everything working together to make the most of the knowledge we’ve gained… And, perhaps most important of all, to be a better servant organization.

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Quotation Mark

Fundraising is what feeds our mission. We need the money. But what we have found in engaging with GoodUnited is that there are multiple areas of opportunity and benefit that we are getting beyond the dollars alone.

Geoff Delizzio
—
Chief Development Officer
THE Impact

The Campaign Impact

Let’s talk Reach. With social media—specifically Facebook giving tools and Messenger—Epilepsy Foundation is now a global organization and is building a worldwide community around their mission.

And because epilepsy is often a lonely journey, a strong digital community impacts the greater well-being of many patients, caregivers, and supporters. In this case, a community of 31,432 group members strong. And still growing.

What’s more: Epilepsy Foundation puts the data they’re gathering to work in order to provide the right experience for each and every supporter. In other words, if they can identify someone as a patient, they are able to give resources on surgery and post-op, important questions to ask, checklists, etc.

Now THAT’S personal.

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ABOUT THE CLIENT

Epilepsy Foundation

Epilepsy is the fourth most common neurological disorder in the world, with more than 3.4 million people diagnosed in the US alone. Enter Epilepsy Foundation.


Their mission: to lead the fight to overcome the challenges of living with epilepsy and to accelerate therapies to stop seizures, find cures, and save lives. They achieve this by:

Funding and accelerating research and innovation

Advocating at both state and federal levels for laws

Educating and training the public about epilepsy and seizure first aid

Raising awareness‍

Connecting people to treatment, support, and resources

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Want to learn more?

Let’s Talk