How American Foundation for Suicide Prevention raised over $294,000 with a Facebook dog walking Challenge ​

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) harnessed the power of Facebook to raise money and create a brand new community of over 8,000 members through their Facebook Challenge of Walk Your Dog 50 Miles in  February.

Key results

Driving impact, making a difference

Set the scene

Who is American Foundation for Suicide Prevention?

AFSP is a North American nonprofit and their mission is to save lives and bring hope to those affected by suicide. They have 73 chapters across the United States and a variety of programs to help meet the needs of their communities. 

The team were keen to run a virtual Challenge to find new supporters. However, due to the sensitive nature of their mission, maintaining a personal touch was a priority for AFSP. Therefore, by using GivePanel’s tools and following our best practices, AFSP were able to connect with their fundraisers and run a hugely successful pilot campaign. Here’s how they did it.

The challenge

Walk Your Dog 50 Miles in February

A Facebook Challenge is a virtual event that runs solely on Facebook and leverages the power of social networking through ads, groups and fundraisers. This means: 

• Lower acquisition costs
• More fundraisers
• And the chance to meet supporters where they already are!

AFSP chose to run their first Facebook Challenge because the model allowed testing at a small scale and low risk. A successful test would achieve several goals: acquiring new supporters, engaging them in the mission, increasing Facebook donors, and uplifting overall fundraising income.

Pilot Success Metrics

So, how did the pilot go? The team achieved a 31% increase in the average amount raised compared to their regular organic fundraising. Furthermore, they collected contact details for over 3,000 fundraisers during this single event.

Key Learnings for Sustained Engagement

Their success hinged on creating a hyper-engaged community that shared personal stories and connected to the cause.

Human Connection: Most importantly, they managed to retain the personal connection with their fundraisers, despite the event being entirely virtual.

New Audiences: They found supporters who were entirely new to the cause, engaging a fresh audience during the Challenge.

Concept Fit: The dog walking model fit both the organization and its supporters well.

The GivePanel difference

Meeting supporters where they are

With ‬GivePanel ‬you can run virtual events and Challenges entirely on Facebook and manage all of your data with ease. ‬Our Facebook Group event registration forms sync with Facebook transaction data so that you have all of your data in one place. ‬Our fundraiser engagement and messages tools mean that you can give Facebook fundraisers the experience they deserve resulting in more contact details collected and funds raised.‬

GivePanel ‬gives you the analytics and reports you need to track campaigns and enables you to build custom imports for your CRM. ‬All of this saves significant staff time, ‬allowing you to focus on what matters ‬–‬ ‬fundraising!‬

Final thoughts

Top tips from AFSP

• You need to engage with your supporters to encourage them to fundraise for your nonprofit. Engagement and fundraising go hand in hand. 
• Find a connection between your nonprofit’s mission and the Challenge you choose. AFSP found an incredible connection between mental health and dog walking. The rest is history.
• Test and learn as you go! Apply those learnings to make your next Facebook Challenge event more successful than the last and increase ROI.