A human rights case study about how solid digital and data investment can yield strong financial support.
Truth matters. Around the world, speech is recognized as a human right, especially within journalism, as it built the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Similarly, in the United States, freedom of the press is also a constitutionally protected right, which is enshrined in the First Amendment.
Yet, having a freedom granted doesn’t mean you’re able to use it. Corporate media outlets may self-censor to protect billionaire owners, shareholders, or government and other institutional sources’ interests. For example, it’s hard to imagine many media outlets running stories on their parent company’s unfair labor practices, poor environmental record, or shady political ties. This is why investigative reporting plays a particularly important role. It’s mission-driven journalism in the public interest instead of clickbait that generates ad revenue.
Before We Started
One of our clients, an independent, Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit investigative newsroom published major, ground-breaking reporting enabled by their successful Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. With the rapid spread of misinformation and disinformation, they needed to:
- raise funds to support their work, and
- simultaneously expand public awareness of the importance of their recent reporting.
Yet, they had a healthy distrust of the internet, especially social media, due to its role in spreading misinformation and lack of editorial standards. Unfortunately, this limited their abilities to widen their audience and raise money in an electronic world. After all, they were journalists—not campaigners, marketers, or digital fundraisers.
So, they connected with us.
What Changed
From Fundraising Skepticism to 4X Returns
We built trust by shattering their assumptions about digital advertising. Our first campaign earned the organization a 4X return on investment. In other words, for every dollar invested in the campaign’s advertising, they raised four dollars in donations. Additionally, we introduced their work to 114,560 additional potential supporters, which represented a more than 51% increase from the previous year.
From Newsletter-Based Outreach to Multi-Platform Engagement
We built sophisticated retargeting infrastructure that transformed how they engaged potential donors. Previously, if someone clicked a donation link in their newsletter but didn’t give, that opportunity was lost. Our retargeting campaigns reached their newsletter subscribers on various news sites, social media platforms, and mobile apps. This layered, integrated approach to donor cultivation gave audiences multiple opportunities to complete donations. Their number of donors increased by more than 20%.
From Lapsed Donors to Reignited Supporters
We even reignited many dormant supporters. The success of our retargeting strategy meant that people who had previously donated and stopped reupped their donations when they saw our timely ads connected to the organization’s investigative reporting.
From Ad Hoc Efforts to Strategic Infrastructure
We provided the organization with comprehensive tracking, optimization, and performance analysis data. Because it was their largest foray into digital fundraising at the time, we helped them better understand their donors’ demographics as engagement patterns, allowing them to identify which narratives most effectively converted their attention into action.
As with anything new, there were a few bumps. Problem-solving during a few crunch moments, we extended campaign timelines, worked directly with their in-house and contracted web teams to implement better conversion tracking capabilities, and adjusted strategies to overcome barriers that would have derailed less experienced partners. In the end, we built up their integrated digital fundraising infrastructure from scratch.
The Lasting Impact
The partnership fundamentally changed how the investigative journalism organization understood digital fundraising and audience development. Nonprofit journalism can, indeed, generate positive returns on digital advertising investments.
By introducing their reporting to over 100,000 people and converting many into financial supporters, we helped them extend fundraising efforts beyond foundation funding to build direct support from the communities they serve. Each of the newly recruited donors represent someone who values investigative journalism enough to actually fund it. We demonstrated that demand for independent journalism remains strong, and that people also want to help sustain it.
Perhaps most significantly, we helped them understand that digital fundraising is about creating multiple touchpoints that give potential supporters numerous opportunities to act. The retargeting infrastructure we built meant that they could engage someone interested in their FOIA-based investigations, their political corruption coverage, or their accountability journalism strategically over time, not just in a single moment.
This case study demonstrates that human rights organizations, including those working in press freedom, can experience strong financial support for justice when they invest in solid digital and data infrastructure.
Ready to make a lasting impact? Get us on your team.