During the month of April 2013, Share Our Strength's No Kid Hungry campaign grew its monthly giving club, The Hunger Core, by over 300 new members. The Hunger Core now boasts more than 2,500 members for the first time!

Donordigital and Mal Warwick Associates worked with No Kid Hungry to create a month-long multi-channel campaign. Efforts spanned email, web, social media, direct mail, and telemarketing and were integrated wherever possible. For example, for the group that was receiving a phone call asking them to renew their monthly donation, those with email addresses on file received an email message beforehand alerting them that they would be called the next week and inviting them to give online instead. Those who responded were then suppressed from the telemarketing campaign and those who didn't were primed for their phone call. Prospects receiving the mail piece received an email message three days after the mail drop that referenced the direct mail package and let them know they could also give online.

Throughout the campaign, we targeted audiences with slightly different messaging. Segments of non-donors and current or former single gift donors were asked to join The Hunger Core with a monthly gift, lapsed Hunger Core members were asked to renew their monthly giving, and current Hunger Core donors were asked to upgrade their monthly gift amount. We suppressed anyone who joined The Hunger Core in the three months prior to the campaign as well as anyone who had called the No Kid Hungry offices with an issue with their Hunger Core membership.

Before embarking on this campaign, we conducted donation form optimization tests on the monthly giving donation form to ensure it was achieving the best possible conversion rate. Other special features of the campaign included a "monthly donor upsell lightbox" added to the main donation page on the website, which provided single gift donors the option to convert their gift into a monthly donation with a simple click of the mouse. We also tested a Facebook Custom Audiences ad campaign for Hunger Core recruitment, targeting online donors that we matched within Facebook. That campaign recruited new monthly donors at a cost comparable to other channels. Finally, we created a thermometer on the donation page that tracked new Hunger Core members throughout the month.

The consistent support made possible by monthly giving is making it possible for No Kid Hungry to aggressively pursue its mission of ending childhood hunger in America by connecting kids with healthy food where they live, learn and play.

Wendy Marinaccio is an Account Director at Donordigital, the online fundraising, marketing, and advertising company.