Raising $100K+ in a vision care desert with Bloomerang CRM & Volunteer

Key Nonprofit Highlights

Eye Thrive is a St. Louis-based nonprofit founded in 2004 that provides free, comprehensive vision care to children in the greater St. Louis area, a “vision care desert” where school vision screenings aren't a state requirement. Eye Thrive’s combination of Bloomerang CRM and Volunteer gave different teams a clear view of volunteer and supporter data, which they were able to use to launch a deeply segmented, relationship-driven end-of-year campaign. What was budgeted as a $10,000 effort raised $101,049, exceeding projections by 164%, and fueled a mission-critical expansion to a second Mobile Vision Clinic.

Challenge

Managing fragmented supporter data across a growing mission

Eye Thrive's Mobile Vision Clinics bring comprehensive eye care directly to schools and community spaces, offering same-day glasses, medical referrals, Medicaid navigation, and free replacement pairs to children who need them. Of the children Eye Thrive serves, 38% fail vision screenings, making the organization's wraparound service model critical to the community. However, the systems behind Eye Thrive's services couldn't keep pace with its growth.

"One of the biggest challenges was trying to keep up with the complexities of our work in the changing landscape," explained Feven Fessehatzion, Eye Thrive's donor database coordinator. "It was difficult because we were drawing data from several different platforms, and so it made it more stressful on some of our staff who were trying to keep up with that data."

Paper consent forms, electronic intake records, donor histories—all of it lived in different places. Tracking volunteer activity, board engagement, and donor relationships without a unified system meant critical details slipped through. Then, when a virtual event underperformed, the development team faced added pressure: they needed an end-of-year campaign that could make up the gap, and fast.

Solution

Centralizing donor engagement and volunteer coordination with Bloomerang

The development team's most powerful move was using Bloomerang's segmentation and reporting tools to build a campaign unlike any the organization had run before. First, Fessehatzion and her colleagues pulled donors into highly specific groups based on giving history, engagement recency, and gift type: supporters who gave last year but not this year, donors who gave that year but skipped the virtual event, recent Giving Tuesday donors, and active volunteers. Then, each segment received a tailored appeal letter alongside a personal note, some from the CEO and some handwritten by staff.

"Being able to segment everybody down to such a specific group definitely helped everyone feel that they got a very impactful, personalized touch point, and I think that's why we got so many responses," Fessehatzion said. The team sent 700 appeal letters, more than the organization had likely ever mailed in a single campaign. Bloomerang's reporting tools made it possible for a small development staff to execute that volume without sacrificing the personal touch that made each letter land.

Eye Thrive’s combination of Bloomerang CRM and Volunteer also gave different teams a clear view of mission work across the organization, from tracking board meeting attendance to managing which volunteers handle data entry at clinic visits. Different staff members used each product for unique purposes, and for the first time ever, they were able to view supporter data holistically and gain visibility they’d never had before. "We've been able to use it to track what volunteers are up to specifically, which has been helpful because they support a lot of the things on the ground, like consent and data management,” explained Fessehatzion. “It makes sure that nothing's getting left behind in terms of work."

Results

Raising $101,049 from a $10,000 campaign and adding a second Mobile Vision Clinic

Eye Thrive's end-of-year campaign raised $101,049 against a $10,000 budget, exceeding projections by 164%. One lapsed donor who hadn't given in years received a personalized letter and a note from Eye Thrive's CEO, then mailed back a check for $2,500 with no explanation. "I think just being able to go so far back and catch those donors who fell through the cracks really made a difference," Fessehatzion said. Another donor who attended the virtual event wrote that she "wasn't planning to give again this year, but your sweet personalized note made me want to support Eye Thrive one more time." For their innovative end-of-year campaign, Eye Thrive was honored with the Good Neighbor Givie Award at GiveCon 2026. 

Better data helped Eye Thrive make the case to donors for a capital campaign, one that raised enough to launch a second Mobile Vision Clinic and double the organization's capacity to reach kids in underserved communities. And that data infrastructure has already changed lives in ways no spreadsheet can capture. Because of Eye Thrive's referral program, a four-year-old girl's rare eye disease was caught before her parents knew she had a vision problem. Several surgeries later, she retained 80% of her sight, but without that early detection, she might have lost her vision entirely. With a second clinic now on the road and Bloomerang powering the work behind the scenes, there are more kids like her to find.

For Fessehatzion, the work of learning what Bloomerang can do is ongoing. "One thing that I've enjoyed about Bloomerang is the more that I've used it, the more I've learned. Another thing that I think has been great is that Bloomerang advances. I feel like it's maybe every other month that I'm finding out a new feature that Bloomerang has that then my team is able to implement and make things much easier."