The Brigid Alliance offers a critical service: getting people to the abortions they need, whatever it takes. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it dismantled 50 years of federal reproductive protections, sparking outrage and driving people to look for tangible ways to contribute to the cause.
Attention largely waned over 2024, when the issue wasn’t in the headlines so much, but with the cost of an abortion journey rising by an average of $1,000 as abortion bans forced people to travel further, and more people struggling to access this critical healthcare, the need was more urgent than ever.
With high demand and low brand awareness, The Brigid Alliance had a challenge on their hands: raise income year-round, increase their ability to deliver impact at scale and connect women with abortion services. Our goal was simple: learn how Brigid can best raise income, and put these learnings into practice for End of Year 2024, when public donor momentum is at its highest.
Key metrics
The strategy
We created a phased approach to drive giving. Three sprints, each about a month in duration, that would give us continuous insights into what was working and implement findings in a fully optimized end of year campaign.
In the run up to End of Year, Brigid’s peak giving moment, we knew we needed to learn how to most effectively convert audiences. Through 2024, we therefore launched three sprint campaign cycles.
Our strategic imperative throughout: Make it real, keep it relevant.
Aiming to bring home the reality of an abortion journey across state lines, keep attacks on abortion access front of mind, and make donations feel tangible, we focused on compelling, empathetic content - while continuously testing and optimizing outreach. We stayed close to local developments so we could quickly respond. For example, upscaling budget in Arizona when the ban came into place there.
The execution
We ran three sprints in the build up to end of year, each heavily tailored toward leveraging actionable insights to inform our End of Year strategy. These were:
Sprint 1: learning where the most valuable supporters were located.
We analyzed historic Google Analytics data to categorize US states into projected high, medium and low ROI buckets. We activated historically impactful creative, measuring geolocational performance in terms of CTR and ROAS, and confirming our hypotheses that 35 states had consistently low performance. This allowed us to exclude these states from future campaigns, instantly making Brigid’s paid media budget 34% more efficient.
Sprint 2: comparing lower monthly donations to higher value one-off donations.
Based on insights from 2023, which showed Brigid’s donor base had a strong monthly giving skew, we tested various monthly and one-off donation asks. We compared illustrative campaigns against testimonial content, to see what creative landed most, pitting a range of high, medium and low monthly giving asks against each other to see the average donation that most resonated.
We found that audiences were less receptive to year-round giving than anticipated, and that monthly giving is likely a tactic best nurturing over email instead of paid. As a result of this, we ensured we had a strong testimonial video in rotation for end of year to build awareness and engagement, and led with an exclusive one-off cash ask.
Sprint 3: deeply test messaging.
We developed multiple creative routes for donation appeals and lead generation. One route illustrated journeys to access abortions, bringing to life emotional and financial impacts, while another showcased Brigid's impact in simplifying these complex journeys.
We found that impact-focused creative performed best for donation appeals, while individual-focused content was more effective for lead generation. As a result, we incorporated a strong impact focus in our end of year comms — and are now in discussion with Brigid about a potential lead gen strategy for 2025.
Our ‘softer’ goal, to keep abortion access front of mind, even when it wasn’t making headlines, was undoubtedly met, as evidenced by our harder, donation-focused objectives.
Objectives met:
✔️ Exceed $100,000 in digital income by end of year.
For the first time, we were able to surpass the golden $100,000 figure, driving $140,000 from digital income.
✔️ Achieve a blended Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS) of 4 for end of year.
We uplifted end of year income by 40% compared to 2023, at a 7.4 return on investment.
✔️ Double ROAS on Giving Tuesday.
5.21 direct ROAS across paid search and META.
These results not only met but exceeded our initial objectives, providing The Brigid Alliance with a robust foundation for future digital fundraising efforts and, most importantly, enabling them to support more individuals in accessing critical abortion care services. We also wrote Brigid’s 2024 annual report, which features more highlights from the year.
The strategic insights gained from our three-sprint approach will also inform future efforts through:
Increased Support for Clients: With the average cost per abortion trip rising by $1,000 in 2023, the additional funds raised will significantly expand Brigid's capacity to support individuals seeking abortion care.
