Client: Sun Sentinel

Project: Sun Sentinel Children’s Fund

Date: 2018

Overview:

The Sun Sentinel has always believed in the importance of giving back to the communities they serve and re-launched the Sun Sentinel Children’s Fund (SSCF).  The goal of the SSCF was to look at the issues plaguing the community and evaluate  where the Sun Sentinel could leverage its reach and capacity to inform and to help elevate a large population of people struggling in our community.

Through the generous support and donations of their readers, they planned on supporting nonprofits with proven track records of programs addressing issues such as literacy and removing employment barriers by awarding nonprofits with grants of funding and digital subscriptions.

Approach:

The SSCF was funded through the donations of readers.  Funds raised through the readership would be allocated to key nonprofits that aligned with the mission and scope of the SSCF.  SPI was hired to oversee the project management of the fundraising campaign as well as serve as the grant administrator.

SPI worked with the Sun Sentinel’s Editor, Publisher, and VP of Marketing & Sales to solidify their funding priorities and place a framework around the grant application process.  Creating an online presence to communicate the new priorities to charities and to the readership, creating an infrastructure to start accepting grant applications as well as managing was all awarded nonprofits was instrumental to the success of the program.

Results:

Through the use of data, we were able to breakdown now only the amount of funds raised, but how the funds were collected (i.e. direct mail, newspaper ads, web donations, buck slips, stat ad, etc.).  This breakdown was kept to specifically target key donors and learn the type of fundraising tactics that were best received and most successful.  This data collection also shed light on the donors preferred giving method (i.e. writing personal checks, credit card or sending in cash).

Through another software program, we were able to track the engagement rate for all communication efforts (emails, website, social media) by learning about impressions, open rates, unique click through rates and total donations raised through these channels.  The data was collected to help ensure that marketing dollars were allocated towards the best strategies for donor engagement.

Lasty, as SPI oversaw the grant management process for the SSCF, we were able to track the nonprofit applications received and breakdown into the type of groups that applied, which funding priorities they most aligned with, the county in which they were from, and the total number of subscriptions they would need to fulfill their project.  Using this data gave us insight where there were gaps and could use this information to help target nonprofits in the future.