This is a case study overview featuring results from Civic Shout’s Joint Actions platform, a free acquisition channel built on shared advocacy campaigns that you can use to raise money and grow your list for free.
Animal Welfare Investigations Project, a UK-based animal welfare organization, was spending on Meta ads to build a US donor base.
AWIP sends a lot of email, and at that volume, their active audience turns over fast.
Keeping the pipeline full was getting expensive, so they decided to try something different to make the most of their budget and continue growing their email file.
The breakthrough
AWIP started using Civic Shout Joint Actions. Joint actions are shared advocacy campaigns that grow your list and drive impact.
They created petitions on the platform, sent them to their existing list, and earned $2.25 in Civic Shout cost-per-click advertising credits for every signature.
They put those credits back into promoting AWIP’s own campaigns across the Civic Shout network.
The team creates three to four petitions a week, each taking about ten minutes or less.
The results
In three months, AWIP earned $508,770 (!!!) in advertising credits.
Those credits drove more than 678,000 clicks to their own petitions, bringing in 34,584 new supporters and reactivating many, many more.
In a single 30-day window, those supporters raised nearly $35,000. And 1,345 of them, roughly 10%, converted to monthly recurring donors.
But the standout number may be gift size.
Civic Shout Joint Action-acquired supporters gave $28.05 on average, compared to $15.00 from Meta-acquired subscribers.
The program also brought back people the organization had previously lost.
About 15% of supporters who had unsubscribed and returned through the platform signed up for monthly giving.
And they got these jaw-dropping results with a modest list of just 174,000 subscribers.
Their active segment is around 57,00 and Joint Actions grew it by more than 30% in three months, creating negative churn.
It makes me wonder what some of the larger groups out there could do with just 1-2 Joint Actions sends a month.
Is your acquisition source pulling its weight?
Pull your donor file and compare average gift and click rates by acquisition source. If you’re spending real budget on paid channels, you should know whether those supporters engage at the same rate as people who found you through petitions or organic sign-ups.
Track acquisition cost against lifetime value rather than cost per lead alone. A cheaper lead that never gives a second gift will cost more over time than a supporter who becomes a sustainer.
The bottom line
Civic Shout Joint Action supporters gave 87% more and clicked 36% more than Meta-acquired ones.
It’s clear: Where your supporters come from matters as much as what you send them.
As you map out budgets for 2027, take time to evaluate your acquisition channels and plan to try something different.
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Quick hits
Digital strategist Max Levy talks email fundraising and experimentation on Create for Change, including why he’s still an “email truther” after a decade in campaigns and nonprofits.
Email Love’s 10 email rules worth retesting challenge conventional wisdom on subject line length, CTA placement, send days, and file size, backed by data from 79,000+ archived emails.
The Center for American Progress is hiring a Vice President of Digital Communications to lead strategy across social, email, and digital campaigns. Washington, D.C., on-site, $140-168K.
‘Til next time!
Sara