Key Nonprofit Highlights
The Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank in Pennsylvania is dedicated to providing access to nutritious food while supporting long-term stability for neighbors in need. The Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank switched to Bloomerang Fundraising after struggling with their previous vendor’s cumbersome platform. The transition allowed them to significantly enhance their fundraising efforts using tools like peer-to-peer campaigns, customizable donation forms, and advanced reporting features.
With Bloomerang, they doubled their annual fundraising revenue, grew monthly donors from 800 to 2,000, raised over $7 million through employee engagement campaigns, and saved staff 4 hours a week with automation. They generated over $100,000 in text fundraising, and they nearly doubled their transaction total in one year. The Food Bank credits Bloomerang’s smart tools and exceptional customer support for helping them surpass their fundraising goals, raising $27 million in a year where they had set a goal of $11 million.
Challenge
Overcoming fundraising challenges with old text-to-donate and peer-to-peer fundraising
The Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank decided to replace their online fundraising vendor after struggling with a cumbersome platform that wasn’t user-friendly and lacked intuitive features for text-to-donate, peer-to-peer, and monthly giving programs. After switching to Bloomerang Fundraising at the recommendation of One & All social impact agency, the Food Bank was able to improve their fundraising efforts significantly.
“Bloomerang has surpassed my expectations. I was told good things by One & All, but the customer service is above and beyond,” said Jennifer Zgurich, Director of Corporate and Community Giving. “With my previous vendor, I never got to talk to a real human, only really talked to an automated ticketing system. With Bloomerang, the customer service is amazing.”
Solution
Using Bloomerang’s Peer-to-Peer fundraising tool to drive record donations
Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank has enhanced their fundraising efforts with Bloomerang Fundraising tools. Using the mobile app and donation forms, they’ve customized forms, supported recurring donations, and run team and individual fundraising campaigns with social sharing options. When they added Bloomerang’s Peer-to-Peer platform, the Food Bank was able to take advantage of features like customizable reminders, receipts, DIY campaigns, matching gifts, gamification, sponsor and leaderboard pages, and registration tools to support their supporters and corporate relationships.
Additionally, they’ve benefited from robust reporting features, providing custom reports for their business partners running campaigns. “I have experts on all levels coming together to help us be successful,” explained Megan Bailey, Director of Individual Giving. “Without them, we would be guessing and hoping, but I know that it’s all connected on an expert level. I know we are working with experts who care about our success, and that extra layer of them all working together is pretty awesome.”
Results
More than doubling annual fundraising revenue after switching to Bloomerang
With Bloomerang Fundraising, the Food Bank has seen incredible results. They conducted two back-to-back telethons that raised about $1 million and set up dozens of employee engagement campaigns for their community business supporters, which have raised over $7 million, with an average gift of $280. Before partnering with Bloomerang, they had about 800 monthly donors and have since grown to 2,000 recurring donors–and counting. When they added the peer-to-peer package, they generated over $100,000 in text fundraising, and they nearly doubled their transaction total in one year.
As compared to their former solution of manually transferring data into their CRM, they estimated this automation saves their staff over 4 hours on average per week. The Food Bank has acknowledged that they would not have been able to sustain their incredible growth if they had not made their move to Bloomerang Fundraising when they did. “We raised over $27 million this past fiscal year, and our goal was $11 million,” said Bailey. “Having smart tools enables our staff to spend their time wisely, execute the plan, and ensure they have tools that work for us.”
