If/When/How: Building a Culture of Fundraising Through Network Engagement

Founded to advance reproductive justice through legal advocacy, If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice launched the If/When/How Network in June 2024 as a volunteer program for attorneys and advocates. The If/When/How Network is organized to defend and advance reproductive justice by providing legal representation, training, and resources for people facing criminalization related to abortion, pregnancy, and birth. The network equips members to transform lives and laws - through direct legal support, strategic advocacy, and community education - so that everyone has the power and support to make decisions about their bodies and families without barriers, coercion, or punishment.

Overview

With support from Progressive Multiplier, If/When/How set out to convert network members into donors while building a sustainable culture of philanthropy across the organization. When their development director departed in January, the team adapted by focusing solely on network member engagement, ultimately creating new pathways for both volunteer involvement and financial support. The project broke down organizational silos and demonstrated how volunteers who give their time often become an organization's most committed donors.

Key Strategies & Tactics

If/When/How's network engagement initiative integrated data analysis, automated systems, and personal outreach to transform volunteer relationships into donor partnerships:

• Data-Driven Engagement: Analyzing Salesforce data to track how network members engaged through emails, webinars, and research requests, using evidence to demonstrate volunteer engagement patterns to colleagues without fundraising experience

• Specialized Donor Journeys: Creating separate engagement pathways for network members who donate, acknowledging their unique relationship with the organization through both volunteer and financial support

• Organizational Integration: Hosting a staff Thinkathon where colleagues across departments called donors to express gratitude, introducing 12 staff members and 3 board members to development work

• Skills Building: Designing a spring 2026 training to teach network members fundraising skills, allowing them to support the organization and related causes through their own networks 

• Use Data to Tell the Story: Evidence about volunteer engagement patterns helped overcome colleague hesitation about soliciting network members, demonstrating that most engagement happens within the first two months of joining

• Invest in Internal Relationships: Implementation required more internal negotiation than anticipated, but building those connections created lasting infrastructure for cross-team collaboration

   

• Connect Giving to Values: Highlighting grassroots individual donations helped staff feel more comfortable with fundraising, offering an alternative to concerns about large institutional funders

• Leverage External Accountability: Having a grant created urgency and structure that helped generate organizational buy-in for new approaches

• Create Both/And Solutions: Acknowledging discomfort with some funding sources while building creative grassroots fundraising provided a path forward that honored organizational values

   

By The Numbers

The Multiplier Effect

Impact

The network engagement project created impact far beyond its original revenue goals. By using data to demonstrate the connection between volunteer engagement and giving, If/When/How's development team helped colleagues across the organization understand how fundraising advances the mission.

The Thinkathon proved particularly powerful in breaking down anxieties about asking for money while building a culture of gratitude. Staff members who had never participated in development work discovered they could contribute meaningfully through simple acts like thank-you calls. Board members who had no previous fundraising relationship with the organization began engaging with donors directly. The project laid groundwork for a major gifts officer hire and established infrastructure for ongoing collaboration between development and program teams.

Most significantly, the initiative helped the organization navigate questions about funding sources by demonstrating how grassroots individual giving could align with their reproductive justice values. The upcoming fundraising skills training for network members represents the team's vision for donor organizing, where people with networks support both the organization and related causes like local abortion funds. This approach creates multiple engagement opportunities for supporters with energy and commitment, allowing them to contribute even when direct service volunteer opportunities are not available.