About Vanderburgh Humane Society
Vanderburgh Humane Society (VHS), based in Evansville, Indiana, launched their first fully planned Giving Tuesday campaign in 2024. The initiative focused on a highly tangible project: the final stretch of a year-long effort to renovate the organization’s adoption kennels. With most of the funds already raised (~90K), the Giving Tuesday campaign aimed to raise the remaining $10,000 needed to complete the project.
As Amanda Coburn, Director of Advancement at VHS, explained, “We had fundraised for a significant portion of the money all year long, and this [Giving Tuesday Campaign] was going to get us over the hump to finish the project, which always tends to be more successful than funding a whole huge project on its own.”
Giving Tuesday Campaign Goals
While renovations were needed, Amanda shared that making the case for facility updates can be more difficult than program-based fundraising. “At the end of the day, we could still help the animals with crappy looking kennels,” she said. “It doesn’t save an animal’s life, if that makes sense.”
The team needed to position the campaign in a way that emphasized urgency and relevance to their mission. One compelling detail they shared with donors was that the new flooring would be waterproof and disease-resistant, an investment in both aesthetics and animal well-being. “You’re helping keep the animals healthy because germs and diseases can’t get into the floors and kind of get stuck there,” Amanda added.
Why VHS Chose Giveffect
VHS turned to Giveffect to run the Giving Tuesday campaign in a streamlined and donor-centric way. “We decided to use Giveffect almost exclusively simply because we captured the donor’s information,” Amanda explained.
In previous campaigns, using platforms like Facebook, Instagram (Meta), PayPal, or Venmo often resulted in missing names or contact information. For this campaign, the organization heavily promoted their Giveffect fundraising landing page, which allowed them to collect email addresses, physical addresses, and other essential data. All contacts were automatically added to their nonprofit CRM within Giveffect, making future outreach seamless and more effective.
The campaign page itself was intentionally simple and streamlined: a compelling video, message, and donation button. “Giveffect really helped us create a tailored campaign around this specific initiative by itself. Being able to create a campaign with its own dedicated URL with an embeddable video really helped drive home, as soon as they land on that page, that they are where they want to give.” Amanda added, “Giveffect campaigns are pretty easy to set up. It doesn’t have to be complicated.”
Video played a central role in the campaign’s storytelling. “We kind of have an unfair advantage because videos of animals perform well anywhere,” Amanda said. They filmed the video just days before launch, but found it essential for showing supporters what needed to be done and how their gifts would help.
“It’s easier to do storytelling through a video because it speaks for you. It helps back up your credibility and you can show firsthand what you’re needing.”
Fundraising Results and Key Metrics
The results speak for themselves. VHS not only met their $10,000 goal, they exceeded it by more than 40%, raising a total of $14,176. “It felt so nice. We had a little celebration at the end of the day when we hit our goal,” Amanda shared. The success was especially sweet given that it was their first formally organized Giving Tuesday campaign. “It was amazing to have surpassed the goal in the very first one we’d ever done.”
Donors responded positively to both the campaign and the follow-up communications. “People were very excited and receptive,” Amanda said, referencing the email updates and visual impact reports they shared post-campaign. “Lots of people said, ‘It makes all the difference in the pictures, and I’m glad I could be a part of that.’” These updates, sent only to the donor group tagged in Giveffect, maintained consistent messaging regardless of gift size to ensure every supporter felt valued.
Lessons and Takeaways for Other Nonprofits
Amanda attributes the campaign’s success to three key factors: a highly visible, tangible project; smart timing as the final push toward a larger fundraising goal; and the ability to capture and use donor data with Giveffect.
“Pick something that’s flashy and simple and easy,” she advised. “People would rather get you over the hump at the end than have this giant goal that nobody can ever reach in one day.”
She also emphasized the value of planning ahead and fully leveraging Giveffect’s tools.
“If someone’s looking to do a Giveffect campaign for the first time, my advice would be to get the campaign created in plenty of time in advance. Craft your messaging early and be ready to hit the ground running with scheduled social posts and emails.”
What stands out most to Amanda about Giveffect
“If I had to sum up one reason why we use Giveffect, it would be that we can see each of our supporters in a full picture… It allows us to see their full contribution to the organization, both for the monetary portion and them giving their time… We were thrilled to make the switch, and we’ve been happy with Giveffect for the several years we’ve been using it.”
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