Case Study
As Canada’s largest environmental law charity, Ecojustice helps people take governments and polluters to court, exposing illegal practices and shaping new laws to meet the urgency of the climate and ecological crises.
For more than 30 years, Ecojustice lawyers have represented Indigenous communities, grassroots activists, and everyday Canadians — free of charge. When Ecojustice wins in court, it’s more than just a headline. It’s a win for nature and it’s a win for communities standing up to corporate giants.
Named one of Charity Intelligence’s Top 100 charities in 2021, Ecojustice is proud to be 100 per cent donor-funded and powered by a growing community of more than 177,000 supporters.
In 2019, Ecojustice was looking for a new fundraising partner and reached out to ST (Stephen Thomas Ltd) to create and manage their year-end direct mail campaign as a test. Because of the success of that test, ST was awarded the direct mail program.
Ecojustice has been an Engaging Networks client since 2017 and typically runs their digital campaigns internally. However in 2020, they realized they no longer had the internal capacity to manage those campaigns. As experts in digital fundraising, and also an accredited partner of Engaging Networks, Stephen Thomas Ltd (ST) offered to step in and work with Ecojustice to create and manage their digital campaigns, starting with their 2020 year-end campaign.
The new digital partnership was a big success. Using their Engaging Networks expertise, ST developed a total of 11 fundraising emails based on specific profiles and 28 social media versions were launched on Facebook and Instagram to align with the segmentation and testing strategy.
The campaign’s gross revenue exceeded expectations with a growth of almost 25% compared to the prior year and the social media ads generated 78% more revenue.
The success of the year-end campaign, combined with Ecojustice supporters’ strong appetite for online communications, led to the development of a strategic and proactive digital fundraising plan for 2021.
ST proposed a new digital fundraising campaign that hadn’t been done before — Earth Day! The mission of Earth Day — holding sectors accountable for their role in ongoing environmental crisis -— perfectly aligned with Ecojustice’s goal of challenging environmental transgressors in court.
ST and Engaging Networks partnered to create a digital Earth Day campaign that included 5 emails and 2 Facebook ads delivered over the course of 2 weeks. Content for the emails was developed to target three distinct groups: one-time gift donors, monthly donors, and a large group of supporters who had engaged with Ecojustice but had never donated before.
The campaign also included a matching gift offer which was, after the deployment of the first email, further enhanced by the addition of another matching gift from a dedicated donor.
In the end, close to 600 Earth Day donations were made. Ecojustice revenue was more than 400% higher than what they spent. The Facebook ads generated 77,747 impressions with a total of 173 landing page views. The amazing success of this campaign can be attributed to the dedication of Ecojustice supporters and the use of a matching gift combined with the expertise of ST and the sophisticated toolset that Engaging Networks offers.
Engaging Networks and ST continue to work together to manage digital fundraising campaigns for Ecojustice and create new ways to help this incredible organization raise more money and have a positive impact on our Earth.
Engaging Networks is proud to work with organizations like Ecojustice and partner with fundraising experts like ST to make a difference for our world. To learn more about Ecojustice, visit ecojustice.ca. To learn more about ST, visit stephenthomas.ca.
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