Oxfam America is the US affiliate of Oxfam International, a global movement of people who are fighting inequality to end poverty and injustice. From local to global issues, they work to bring change that lasts across employees, donors and activists. We first worked with their International team back in 2019 helping to rebrand globally for the first time in their 70 year history.
Since 2021, we’ve been working with Oxfam America, implementing this new brand identity and helping them scale a test and learn mentality to build revenue across email and website channels. For paid media, we partner with Chong+Koster to help amplify Oxfam’s reach, build affinity with existing donors, and acquire new donors through display, social media and search.
It all starts with people
When we think about what has been successful across the last two years, it always comes back to people. Whether that’s highlighting issues through direct-to-camera appeals or mobilizing quickly when natural disasters hit or Oxfam’s issues are in the news – we are always thinking of ways to connect with the people who power Oxfam’s work.
It’s been all about getting closer to people in the creative, the journeys we take them on and how we deliver creative.
Our first role as their creative campaigns partner was to consider how the new global platform ‘The Future Is Equal’ could and should be adapted for US audiences. We’ve been able to take what is quite an expansive platform and localize it for issues and engagement mechanisms that are proving to be most effective across the US with a focus on mid to higher-level givers.
From here we’ve built a cross-channel planning and delivery model allowing for increased capacity for both testing and rapid response – building momentum and appeals where natural disasters have occurred in areas where the Oxfam team operates on the ground.
Segmentation has played a crucial role in overall results, working closely with the Oxfam America team we have considered how best to cluster and segment audiences in a way that allows us to offer more unique experiences which has led to a larger average donation size. This has also proved important within the current landscape where the volume of donors and Sustainers are both on the decline – it has been crucial for us to get to know the audiences that are both engaging and giving.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) has also played a role in keeping conversion rates high and driving higher average donations – we’ve seen a 7% increase in web revenue as a result of increased testing capacity.
Fundraising and advocacy working together
A core part of our remit has also involved considering how best to bring together fundraising and advocacy for supporter experience and outcomes. These are two entities that, like most non-profits, functioned separately but now often work together to strengthen the cause.
We have worked closely with their teams to understand which issues make the most resonate with their supporters and which action should be prioritized. For Oxfam, the actions have varied from petitions, social media handraiser, or even supporting a local advocacy partner. This approach has allowed us to achieve peaks in engagement outside of EOY campaigns. It has also meant we’ve been able to uncover more relevant ways to connect with donors in rapid response moments by connecting to advocacy such as encouraging supporters to act on the issue of climate change and urge President Biden to take action or on income inequality during the World Economic Forum.
From a channel perspective, we’re seeing success across Paid Media in partnership with Chong+Koster. Through paid, we have helped rapidly scale Sustainer acquisition through incentivized partners while on YouTube, we are proud to have been able to double the Return On Average Spend (ROAS). Paid media complements our work across Oxfam’s website and email programs and is advancing two critical objectives: driving consideration and donation.
Reflecting on what we’ve learned
Across the last two years, we have four core lessons that are helping shape how we continue to evolve our approach:
Urgency and specificity: combining these two components has helped us demonstrate not only the urgency of need for the organization in terms of crisis but communicating specific economic realities to donors to urge them to give;
Tailor experiences: for key donor segments we have created email and landing page experiences that speak to a specific topical interest or action which has boosted mid level giving;
Increased testing capacity: has seen the organization run more campaigns leading to increase insights and results across email, paid media, and website experiences;
Leading with people: we have seen that when we lead with people we’re able to communicate issues and solutions with a personal lens that drives a greater response and outcome.
We also saw a growth in EOY performance in 2022 for the organization at a time when median performance for similar causes in the sector is down by 9%. We’re excited to continue this work as we apply our learnings & insights to scale activity in 2024.
