Raising $200K+ in a new peer-to-peer fundraiser with Bloomerang
Key Nonprofit Highlights
Well Aware is a women-led nonprofit that funds, implements, and maintains clean water systems in East Africa. After a turbulent year that shook the organization's fundraising foundation, the Austin, Texas-based team rebuilt its flagship peer-to-peer campaign from the ground up. Leveraging Bloomerang CRM to execute a precision-driven donor engagement strategy, they raised $200,000 and grew new participant enrollment by 168% in their new campaign’s inaugural year.
Challenge
Rebuilding an annual fundraising campaign after a difficult year
Before Bloomerang, Well Aware had managed donor data through spreadsheets, a fragmented system that made coordinated, personalized outreach nearly impossible. And for more than a decade, the organization powered its annual fundraising through Shower Strike, a peer-to-peer campaign that challenged supporters in the U.S. to give up showers in solidarity with communities in East Africa facing water scarcity. Then a difficult year, during which the team saw its corporate giving take a significant hit, forced them to rethink their entire fundraising model.
Well Aware replaced Shower Strike with H2gO, a brand-new peer-to-peer fundraiser that challenges participants to complete 30 miles through walking, running, swimming, or rolling, mirroring the long distances women and girls in East Africa often walk each week to collect water. It was a creative, high-risk bet on a concept their audience had never seen, which required significant personalized education and outreach to supporters.
Dani Joosten, Well Aware's marketing manager, described the weight of launching something so new in such a difficult moment: "The first feeling was scary. It was risky that we were introducing something brand new to our audience. But on the other side of that, it felt really freeing—being able to say there's no guidelines, there's no rules, and we could just use our creativity to fully dive into this new campaign. And then it ended up being worth it.”
Solution
Driving peer-to-peer campaign success through advanced donor segmentation and stewardship
With 201 participants, six schools, and dozens of corporate, family, and friend teams all active simultaneously, Well Aware needed to reach each supporter with the right message at the right time for the right reason. Bloomerang CRM served as the central system for donor engagement, cultivation, and campaign intelligence, with the team building distinct segments for both participant recruitment and donor outreach. Past Shower Strike participants received targeted re-engagement messaging tailored to their history with the organization. End-of-year donors got outreach that explicitly acknowledged their previous gift and invited them to deepen their impact. The BCC function—which adds personal emails as constituent interactions to a donor's profile—became a standing agenda item in weekly team meetings, ensuring every donor interaction was logged so no team member ever started a conversation from scratch.
Throughout the campaign, Bloomerang automated personalized stewardship touchpoints, including milestone acknowledgments, first-time donor follow-ups, and post-campaign retention outreach, so every supporter stayed connected. A Bloomerang power user on staff, who built her expertise quickly through Bloomerang's training resources, enabled the Well Aware team with near-instant access to campaign reporting. That speed translated directly into responsiveness. Well Aware could monitor momentum in real time and step in to support high-potential fundraisers before they stalled. "Advanced segmentation made our campaign," explained Joosten. "People are human and they want that human interaction. When you're sending blank messages, that's gonna go right in one ear and out the other."
Results
Raising $200,000 and growing new campaign participants by 168%
H2gO's inaugural run exceeded every expectation. The campaign raised over $200,000, brought in 168% more new participants than prior benchmarks, and funded clean water access for more than 10,000 people across East Africa. It also expanded Well Aware's corporate participant base, attracted a wave of first-time fundraisers, and strengthened the organization's year-round donor pipeline. For their innovative campaign design and results, Well Aware was honored with the Game-Changing Campaign Givie Award at GiveCon 2026.
As a one-person marketing and fundraising operation, Joosten felt the impact clearly. The ability to pull precise donor segments quickly, rather than sorting through spreadsheets manually, freed the team to focus on mission rather than data wrangling. "Bloomerang has made it so painless to be able to pull those segments,” she shared. “I think that stewarding our donors and making sure that it's the right moment, the right time, the right ask, all has to do with segmentation because all of our donors have different priorities, and if we're not speaking to those, then we're failing at our fundraising job.”
The H2gO campaign is now a catalyst for community engagement and long-term impact, and Well Aware is positioned to scale it year after year. Joosten’s advice to other nonprofits is direct: "Bloomerang has all of the tools that you need to succeed. It's just the question of: are you going to take advantage of that? If you're not—do it. Because once you really take advantage of everything Bloomerang has to offer, it's hard to not be successful, especially in fundraising.”
