Raising more funds and growing volunteer engagement with the Bloomerang Giving Platform

Key Nonprofit Highlights

FamilieSCN2A Foundation exists for families who've been told there's nothing to be done—supporting more than 2,500 families worldwide living with SCN2A-Related Disorders and funding research for treatments and a cure. Before Bloomerang, the foundation's three-person team cobbled together dozens of disconnected platforms to manage donors, volunteers, and communications, leaving critical gaps in their view of supporter relationships. After consolidating onto the intelligent Bloomerang Giving Platform, FamilieSCN2A Foundation raised 201% of their GivingTuesday goal, generating more than $200,000 in a single campaign, and grew volunteer engagement by 20%.

Challenge

Managing donor relationships across dozens of disconnected nonprofit platforms

The rare SCN2A genetic mutation can cause life-threatening epilepsy, profound autism, intellectual disability, and other neurodevelopmental disorders. Angie Weaver, Director of Philanthropy & Development, spent years watching her daughter Amelia endure life-threatening seizures while doctors, even at the Mayo Clinic, couldn't explain why. It took four insurance appeals to get genetic testing approved, and Amelia was nine before they finally learned a mutation of the SCN2A gene was the cause. Amelia passed away at 12, and her memory fuels Weaver’s relentless mission every day. For Amanda Gale, Director of Programs and Operations, the mission is just as personal: her nine-year-old son also lives with SCN2A-Related Disorders, making the drive toward research and a cure urgent for both women.

Before adopting Bloomerang, the FamilieSCN2A Foundation ran their entire operation across a patchwork of tools. Their team used Mailchimp for email, spreadsheets to track volunteers, and a rotation of other platforms for fundraising and donor management. As Weaver recalled: 

"I think the number might have been upwards of fifty different platforms to do separate different little items that we can now do just with Bloomerang."
‍

One of the biggest issues was that none of those platforms talked to each other. For Weaver on the development side, this meant no visibility into donor touchpoints—when she and her team had last reached out, what messages supporters had received, or where any given relationship stood. “It was so hard to get the big picture of how a supporter has been communicated with,” said Weaver.

For Gale, the challenge showed up differently. She onboarded every new family in a community that grew by 30% in a single year, while simultaneously managing grants, programming, and organizational processes. The entire foundation ran on three full-time staff, each doing the work of many. Their tools weren't making any of that easier.

Solution

Unifying fundraising software, donor management, and volunteers on the Bloomerang Giving Platform

FamilieSCN2A Foundation joined Bloomerang in late 2023, starting with Bloomerang CRM and Bloomerang Fundraising, then adding Bloomerang Volunteer in mid-2025 to take advantage of the full Giving Platform. The difference was immediate. "Everything in Bloomerang is able to speak to each other," Gale said, no more downloading multiple platforms, no more fragmented views. “It all feels so much cleaner.”

The team leaned into the full platform, where Gale built out dozens of segmented email templates in Bloomerang CRM’s Email Builder to cover research updates, family onboarding, fundraising appeals, and more, saying, “The learning curve wasn't tricky because it really is second nature.” She also used Bloomerang Fundraising for peer-to-peer campaigns, unique donation forms, and text outreach. Weaver used DonorSearch and wealth insights to drive their major donor strategy and tracked every interaction in Bloomerang CRM to stay on top of her pipeline. The addition of Penny, Bloomerang CRM's AI partner, extended what their two-person development effort could accomplish on any given day.

Bloomerang Volunteer gave the foundation the infrastructure to manage a growing network of remote and in-person volunteers, many of whom were also active fundraisers and supporters. For the first time, staff could see a supporter's full journey across giving, volunteering, and engagement in one place. The integrated view transformed how the FamilieSCN2A Foundation showed up to the world. "It also makes us look so much bigger than we actually are," Gale said. "It looks like we are a company of sixty people, rather than the lean team we are."

Results

Raising 201% of their Giving Tuesday goal and growing volunteer engagement by 20%

For their 10th anniversary GivingTuesday campaign, the FamilieSCN2A Foundation used Bloomerang Fundraising to build a custom donation page complete with embedded video, personalized family photos, and a campaign theme called "From One to Many" that captured the heart of their community. They tracked email opens in real time, monitored donor engagement, and ran reports on the fly. The campaign raised more than $200,000 and finished at 201% of their goal.

Since adding Bloomerang Volunteer in mid-2025, volunteer engagement grew by 20%. That number carries real weight: FamilieSCN2A Foundation's volunteers aren't just supporters, they're often among the organization's most passionate peer-to-peer fundraisers, and their engagement feeds directly back into the foundation's fundraising momentum.

For Weaver, fundraising has never been about hitting a number: "For my organization, this is life and death, and Bloomerang has allowed us to successfully fundraise for our community to accelerate research." With 26 research projects in the pipeline and three currently in clinical trials, the FamilieSCN2A Foundation is closer to treatments and a cure than ever before. A team of three is doing the work of many, and with the full Bloomerang Giving Platform behind them, they're not slowing down.