Case Study: The Campaign to Raise $12M for the Sheldon Kennedy Centre of Excellence.

-Dylan Rambow, 2025

The Problem: Child Abuse is a Growing Issue in Central Alberta.

In Red Deer, Alberta, there is a very special organization called the Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre (CACAC). At its core, the CACAC helps children and youth who have experienced some form of child abuse by giving them a space to tell their story. Their services include giving these children access to Child Forensic Interviewers, where their story can be recorded and potentially used as a statement in court.

The CACAC began as a small team, and began to grow over time. One thing became clear: The issue they were facing as a team was growing and they needed to create a Centre that would meet the issue head-on. Their integrated team brings together individuals from Alberta Education, Alberta Health Services, Children and Family Services, RCMP, and other experienced professionals to collaborate in the best interest of the child. For those professionals to continue to tackle the issues they were facing, they needed a bigger, tailor-made space that would foster better collaboration and streamline systems in order to break down silos and help these children.

The Goal: Raise $12 Million Dollars to Build the Sheldon Kennedy Centre of Excellence.

I joined the team in the midst of an ongoing fundraising effort during their all-cash 50/50. At the time, we were working day-in and day-out to raise enough money to form a jackpot close to $300,000.00. At this point, I was not yet aware of the larger goal that the CACAC had in mind. A few months later, our new goal was laid out plainly to me: If we were going to build this innovative and desperately-needed Centre, we needed to raise $12,000,000.00, and we needed to do it within roughly 14 months. Savvy readers will note that $12M is quite a bit more than $300K.

The catch? (Because $12M in 14 months wasn't enough of a catch already) - Over the next 14 months, I would be the CACAC's sole marketing and communications professional. This was a daunting responsibility to say the least. I would have to lean on all of my previous experience and everything I had learned during my education to make this work. After a chaotic few days of taking over a large office space and laying out my brain maps across the room, I broke down the needs of this campaign into bite-sized portions and made a plan for execution. This project had to be approached in the way a project manager would approach it; define your scope, define your stakeholders, work within your budget, and set timelines. With that in mind, I proceeded to define our audience and stakeholders, and got to work.

The Team: Understanding My Role in the Fundraising Ecosystem.

To be perfectly clear: I was the sole marketing professional, but I was not alone.

Our team was headed up by a Campaign Director, and aided by a Campaign Coordinator, both of whom joined the CEO regularly to meet with potential donors and stakeholders. There was also a Campaign Cabinet, made up of notable community members who had extensive networks and brought their own skills and talents.

We were also fortunate to work with an outside organization that guided the team in donor relations and large capital projects. They set up a framework of milestones that we would need to hit in terms of fundraising dollars, and dates associated with those milestones. But the job of making sure that we had the materials and the messaging to get to those milestones, in support of the team, fell to me.

The role of any marketing professional within an organization is to understand the organization's core messaging, live and breathe the brand, and accurately and effectively communicate the messaging and brand in a way that creates engagement and action. With a team surrounding me, and the advice I needed to treat this like a project manager and not like a social media manager, I developed a plan to help my team raise the $12M we needed to help these children.

The Plan: How to #BuildtheFuture

Build the Future - Concept and Script by Dylan Rambow. Shot and edited by Prospector Visual. Voiceover by Melissa Thomas Voiceovers.

This case study is really a study in messaging, particularly around "Why". In every document I created, every social media post I published, every article written about us, every interview we did, and every resource I created, our "Why" was at the center of it. Our best performing tactics can be broken down into the following list:

High impact, strongly branded organic social media.
Paid Meta, LinkedIn, and Google Marketing.
High performance newsletters.
High quality video marketing.
Engaging events.
Effective Radio and OOH Placements.

We will now briefly cover all seven of these points and explain how they contributed to the overall goal that the team had.

Tactic 1: High Impact, Strongly Branded Organic Social Media

I cannot stress enough that this entire campaign was for a not-for-profit organization, which meant there was little-to-no budget for marketing. Organic social media was crucial in our campaign. This meant we needed to have flawless execution of all of the fundamentals, and we needed to gather and utilize data to help us stay on track. This included:

Regularly gathering data on content performance.
Creating content that aligned with our "Why".
Publishing at optimal times.
Engaging with our supporters to help share our messages.
Prioritizing design quality, copy quality, and story-telling.

I would regularly look at our social media performance and gauge what performed well and what didn't, and why. Our highest performing content was typically video content, followed by carousels, and high-quality images. Single image graphics underperformed. We saw massive engagement and reach into the thousands and tens of thousands when we published milestones like where we were with our fundraising, or how many interviews the RCMP had conducted to date. Our audience was made up mostly of adults, particularly women between 25 and 45. A big portion of our audience were either educators or parents. With this in mind, we stayed away from apps and channels that were more popular with younger audiences - no Snapchat, no TikTok.

I made the decision early on to gather as much data as I could, and make decisions based on the data and not necessarily listen to the suggestions that Business Suite was making. Why? Business Suite regularly told us that our audience was online at one time or another and to publish content within those windows, but the data we were collecting showed us that our best performing publishing time was actually the same time every day - 7:00pm. When I compared the results on posts posted during Business Suite's recommendations and posts posted at 7:00pm, we outperformed every time. That is one example of why it is necessary to capture your own data and track it.

The end result was a social media engine that regularly outperformed other organizations of our size, including other professional marketing and for-profit social media engines. We regularly had an engagement rate that outperformed the benchmarks (sometimes as high as 40% when benchmarking set us at around 7%) and our audience grew at a moderate-but-predictable pace. We had very little churn with our audience which suggested that the audience was locked into what we were doing and appreciated the attention to detail and the carefully guarded messaging. It was very important to me that our audience understood that all of the milestones and success and flashy moments were always ultimately in support of children who had experienced abuse. At the end of the day, it always came back to our "Why".

Tactic 2: Paid Meta, LinkedIn, and Google Marketing

When we shot the "Build the Future" video (see tactic #4) I made certain to accomplish two things; get high-quality video, and high quality photos.

The photos were great because they acted as additional marketing collateral that harmonized with the video and messaging. From these high-quality images (children in hard hats ready to "Build the Future") I was poised to launch a solid digital marketing campaign along with the video and radio. The idea is to have consistency in messaging; the voiceover for the video became the audio for the radio ads, the images matched the video harmoniously, the video matched both the aforementioned radio ads and the imagery.

The first thing I did was create 3-5 versions of our campaign images in multiple sizes so that we could conduct some A/B testing and find our strongest images and messages. This was back before AI was able to produce multiple ads for you, but even with AI it is important to have the idea and goal be as clear as possible. We launched 2-3 versions of the single slide ads in various dimensional sizes and combined them with various versions of our campaign messaging. With the help of the Google Ad Suite, those images and messages could be combined into 10-20 different unique ad sets that could appear in various advertising spaces across the web. On Meta, we had similar versatility, and leveraged A/B testing to find the best combination of messaging and imagery, and then continued to boost those winning ads throughout the campaign.

You may think that our goal was to direct people to an online donation portal, but that was not the case. We did not yet have a robust monthly donor program, and implementing one was not feasible at the time. Instead, we wanted to drive web traffic so that people could learn more about this massive project. What we wanted to do was arm the public with all of the knowledge, and then let their interest drive donations, volunteerism, and other KPIs. I will dive into the results below:

Our Meta ads regularly reached 18,000-25,000 accounts monthly, and typically had pretty high engagement (15% - 30% depending on the ad). We saw a notable spike in our website traffic during the times that our ads were running - for example, our campaign landing page out-paced almost every other page combined on our website (including the home page) in terms of visitors. I explain more about our video results below in tactic #4, but I will note here that our combined views across YouTube, Google and Meta reached over 100,000 very quickly, and between paid and organic views "Build the Future" was our most viewed video of all time (combined). These results were made with a very modest budget (after all, CACAC is a not-for-profit), and we typically didn't spend more than $200.00 per month on digital ads. We did advertising on LinkedIn as well, and saw some success, but we dropped our advertising on there when we noticed that our CTR on LinkedIn was 20-30% lower on average compared to our next highest platform, and at a much higher cost per click. Making data-driven decisions ultimately allowed me to keep our advertising costs low, and move forward with high-performing content that I could act on quickly and strategically.

One unexpected result was reporting. Not marketing reporting, but reporting of child abuse. During the campaign, one of our selfless RCMP child forensic interviewers noted a massive spike in case reporting to the CACAC, leading to their busiest year at the time. I can say it never occurred to us until that moment that spreading awareness of what we were doing would also bring about higher reporting and therefore more families and children in need of support. While it is a sad outcome on the surface, I like to think of it as a massive win - children and families that may not have known that services existed for them in their time of need now had somewhere to go, and that is what all of this was really for.

Tactic 3: High Performance Newsletters

An interesting thing happened with our newsletter strategy. Prior to the campaign, our newsletter grew quite large because it was a primary part of the sales funnel for ticket sales during the cash 50/50s that the CACAC had done in the past. This meant that the audience was mostly 50/50 buyers, but also contained some not-for-profit supporters. What changed as we did the campaign was the content of our messaging in those newsletters. What had previously been mostly emails driving ticket sales became an avenue to update stakeholders about where we were in construction, how much had been raised, why we needed to support these children, and even messages directly asking for support.

As a result, we initially experienced a somewhat high churn rate, where many people were unsubscribing from the newsletter. But it didn't take long before we noticed that those who stayed were high-quality engagers. Our newsletter open rates regularly exceeded 55%, and often travelled into the 60% range or more, and that was with a base of nearly 10,000 subscribers. Consider how many emails you don't open. Additionally, our website and social media channels encouraged people to sign up to these newsletters, which meant that as the 50/50 crowd dropped off, those interested in our organization and our journey came on, and open rates continued to remain largely positive. Our CTRs were also very healthy, and we could generally reliably drive traffic to different campaign pitches like purchasing tickets to an event, or donating at a particular time. The best practices were as follows:

Emails always came "from someone", not just the organization.
We rarely sent messages from our CEO so that when we DID send them, they were viewed as special and unique.
Our newsletters always came with strong CTAs that aligned with our current social media and messaging.
We published things to our newsletter audience before social media to make them feel like insiders.
Again, strong focus on "Why" we were doing what we were doing.

One of the biggest newsletter wins I had during that time was when we wrote a newsletter asking supporters to donate towards our Holiday Healing initiative (happening during the campaign). After our first newsletter push, we had received enough donations to out-pace the previous year's Holiday Healing initiative, and were in a position where if we didn't receive any other donations towards that initiative we would still have met all of our targets for that month. That's what high-quality engagement and writing accomplishes when you have a very focused and loyal audience, and you are far more likely to grow an audience like that with long-lasting high-quality content.

Tactic 4: High Quality Video Marketing

I cannot stress this enough: In a digital world, high quality video marketing goes a long way. We were fortunate to be able to work with a videography company called Prospector Visual here in Central Alberta. My advice for working with videographers is to come to the table with a clear idea in mind, and a script or a shot-list.

While we did a few videos throughout the campaign, the main one is the one I am most proud of. "Build the Future" is a short 45-second video that gets to the heart of what the project was all about, and lets the children be the focus. We were in an advantageous position of being able to film the children (all willing participants whose parents worked at the CACAC) in the empty building under the strict supervision of a safety team from Eagle Builders. The set was closed and checked for all safety precautions, and staff were on hand in the background to ensure all safety procedures were followed.

The resulting video was a great mix of striking visuals and a script that was read by the very talented Melissa (Thomas) McCrae. I designed the video to be visually striking (children literally building a better future) while also keeping it short enough for marketing purposes. We repurposed the voiceover and shortened it for use in 30-second radio commercials, and the 45-second length of the video itself made for a great advertisement on Google and YouTube. Within 2 months we had over 100,000 views across all platforms, and a very high watch-rate where the drop-off for viewing lasted well into the video as opposed to dying off in the first 10 seconds. We launched this video at an event, and had a number of opportunities to use it in front of large audiences. I will emphasize this final point here: While there is an up-front cost to high-quality videography, the benefit far outweighs the cost in terms of ongoing usage. Because of the video, we had a tool that could help articulate what was a very complex and multifaceted campaign in a way that was dynamic and compelling. That, in itself, is worth every dollar.

Tactic 5: Engaging Events

One thing I brought with me from my time in broadcasting is the knowledge that one's attention span is short, and heavily divided. The media was happy to give us some spotlight at first, but I knew that given enough time we would lose their attention, and they would report on other stories. It's hard to compete for the front page against a war in Ukraine, shifting global politics, or changes in government. One way to keep the public and the media interested in what your doing is to create engaging events.

One awesome draw that we had in our arsenal was the building itself. There was no elevator pitch for this project - it was simply too vast and complicated to succinctly speak to. Tours of the building (prior to its opening) became major avenues for donor interest. By tying events to these tours, we were able to stay in the public eye more frequently and continued to make waves. I helped to arrange media tours, private tours, public open-house events, and more. The building became synonymous with the campaign - so much so that at one point I hired a professional LEGO builder to do a model of the building and helped our Campaign Director create a mini fundraiser around that called "Brick by Brick". We sold keychains with LEGO bricks on them as a fundraiser. The LEGO model was a big draw for children at events, and gave us the opportunity to engage with the parents to help provide more information on what we were trying to accomplish.

If you're going to do events as an avenue for marketing, I believe it is crucial to ensure that the events have a good mix of accessibility and exclusivity. I.E. Some events should be exclusive and more personal, others should be low-to-no cost for attendees, and be more educational and inviting. Because of our events, we were able to keep the public interested, the media focused on our project, and momentum moving towards the goal. Below are some examples of events we did to help raise money or to spread awareness of the campaign and the CACAC's services:

Community BBQs that were low cost for attendees.
Free open house for those who wanted to learn more about the project.
A donor gala with no cost to the donors as a means of recognition and thankfulness.
An intimate catered concert night with a ticket cost and sponsorship.
Grand Opening and Naming Ceremonies, with invited delegates from interested support groups and governing bodies.
Phone-A-Thon fundraisers with lunch specials at particular restaurants.

Tactic 6: Effective Radio and OOH Marketing Placements

My experience in broadcasting taught me about how to hook a listener in 5 seconds or less. Any longer than 5 seconds (in radio) and you potentially lose a listener - so get to the point quickly! That expertise leant itself well to my script and copy writing as a whole. I came to revisit my script writing abilities a number of times throughout the campaign and during other CACAC initiatives.

Well placed radio advertisements worked well in the long run, with the caveat that they are certainly not the most affordable option for marketers in the not-for-profit sector. We were fortunate that in our market, the stations had a great relationship with not-for-profit organizations, and we were able to make our investment stretch pretty far. For those who need a little more help, I recommend partnering with a local business to sponsor your radio ads if possible. Along with radio advertisements, well written press releases helped to get our noteworthy milestones out into the news and therefore into the public eye. Knowing how to write a press release that will be more likely to be picked up by a news outlet is a learned skill that takes time to develop. Thankfully, my time in broadcasting helped because I knew how to structure these releases for optimal adoption.

Radio advertisements and remote broadcasts are great tools for events and long-term campaigns, but they are hard to track or quantify. Ultimately, the goal of radio advertising is not to measure the outcome of any one singular ad spot, but measure the effectiveness over weeks and months. The feedback we received from the public told us that we were pushing through the noise and getting noticed. People would tell us that they heard about the new Centre at virtually every event we held while we were advertising on the radio. So while any one advertisement is hard to attach data too, the publicity that comes with radio pays dividends in the long run.

OOH (Out of House) marketing is the same. OOH refers to billboards, posters, bus benches, bus advertising, shelters, etc. We worked with a great company (Reid and Wright Advertising) to get our message onto buses and bus benches during the latter portion of our campaign when we needed that final push towards the finish line. My experience in graphic design, and our ability to capture high-quality images with our photographer/videographer Prospector Visual, allowed me to create striking advertisements that we used during that period. Designing a social media square is very different from designing a large-format advertisement. One needs to use fewer words, and consider that billboards and bus benches are likely only getting viewed for a few moments, so the message has to hit fast, and be long lasting. OOH marketing in combination with radio and digital ads creates a landscape where our mission was being sent out into the public and they were seeing it or hearing about it almost everywhere. Each tactic requires a different approach to design and implementation.

The Result: How These Tactics Aided in Raising $12M in just 14 Months.

No business or organization scales up this quickly without marketing and communications. You may have the best product or service in the world, but if nobody knows about you then nobody can participate. And even when people are aware of you, today's heavily saturated market demands to know why they should support you instead of the next guy.

If I've made nothing else clear in this whole case study, I hope that what I have just stated above is what you hold onto. I want to say this again - I certainly did not raise $12,000,000.00 on my own. But consider how often you have been approached to donate money, whether it was $5 or $5,000. You have very likely said "no" to more than one cause, not because you're heartless, but because you maybe didn't connect with that cause, or you had already supported something else - or most likely because you didn't really feel the "why". Why did I set out with these specific tactics? Because I knew who I wanted to target, what information I wanted that audience to know, and communicated to them what I wanted them to do and most importantly - why! We weren't constructing a building because we needed bigger offices and a fancy water cooler; We weren't asking for money to put up some walls and keep doing what we're already doing. We needed you because the only way we can address the growing and concerning trend of child abuse in Central Alberta is to expand the model we had, with evidence-based decision making, and build a future where every child and family that experiences abuse has somewhere to go to receive the support that they need.

Digital marketing met our core donors where they were with messaging that we knew had an effect. Video marketing provided stimulating visuals that drew on emotion and empathy to help gain support. High-quality organic social media and newsletters created an audience that was aligned with our core values, and our mission and vision. Engaging events gave us the opportunity to further educate the public, and generate excitement for our cause while connecting with donors and supporters. Paid advertising and OOH strategies allowed us to always be present in the public eye, outside of our core audience, and generate the curiosity that we needed for the project as a whole. My understanding of these practices, and my experience in this field gave me the foundation to be able to help lead our team towards our goals from a marketing and communications standpoint. From mapping out our tactics, to generating the creatives we needed to help the messages flow, to implementing my vision behind the messages, I played my part in this massive effort.

If I have any advice for anyone wanting to start a project of this size and scope, I would narrow it down to two things. The first: Really great marketing looks and seems effortless because we easily resonate with well-crafted messaging or branding. The truth is, every design or high-quality marketing piece that you see was almost certainly the product of years of skill building and experience, and dozens of iterations and revisions and pivots. Virtually nothing that I created for this campaign was 100% "right" the first time, but my experience and background got me well past the starting line on the first take.

The second point: A really loyal audience and group of supporters (clients, customers, whatever you want to call them) is not built in a day. It takes a significant amount of time to find the people who will take your brand or cause and move it forward for you. If I bake the best bread in the world, and you're gluten intolerant, then you're almost certainly not going to jump on the band-wagon and promote my brand. Finding the people who will be your ambassadors can take time. There are always early adopters, or core supporters early on who just "get it". Growing that core group takes time, consistency, communication, reciprocation, and trust.

Thank you for taking the time to read this case study. I hope you found it insightful and helpful. If you would like to discuss this specific campaign further, please send Rambow Consulting Group an email!