Florida Rising: Growing Engagement

Florida Rising Together is a leading voice for racial justice and expanding democracy across the Sunshine State. Recognizing a need to strengthen the diversity and size of their small donor base, they wanted to convert individuals who gave to them through ActBlue, a grassroots progressive fundraising platform, and provide them with opportunities to give directly to Florida Rising. 

Florida Rising organizes, educates, registers, and mobilizes voters; creates voter education campaigns; and encourages Black and Brown voters. With a grant from Progressive Multiplier, they mapped out a plan to increase their engagement with ActBlue donors, encouraging them to participate in an action or give to the organization directly by visiting their website.

Financial support reflecting the diversity of their membership is essential to their power-building vision for the state. Florida Rising invested in their small donor outreach and stewardship to grow their funding outside institutional support and election cycles.

They started to engage with ActBlue donors through email and social channels and sent a survey to determine which topics — including voting rights and Black history — might be most interesting to this audience. 

Part of their efforts included:

• Adding a donation button to their weekly email newsletter
• Changing the email sender
• Testing different contribution amounts on their donation form

In addition, knowing that some donors were most comfortable with the ActBlue platform and would continue giving through that channel, Florida Rising worked to make their presence stronger on that site by updating pages and interacting with donors. 

Simple changes yielded strong results: Donors started to engage directly with Florida Rising and raised $15,000 from ActBlue donors who have converted to giving directly. They also expect to increase small donor giving by 20%, increase the number of recurring donors, and increase donations through their website by 5%. 

Florida Rising Together is the non-partisan, nonprofit, educational 501(c)(3) arm of Florida Rising, a leading voice for racial justice and expanding democracy in Florida. Created in 2021, Florida Rising Together registers, educates and empowers Floridians to organize in their own communities to advance equity and fairness in the Sunshine State.