Medical Students for Choice (MSFC) trains future abortion providers. Each year it trains 160+ students in person and about 100 more through reproductive health externships. Its fundraising relies on a small team and a seasonal appeal calendar. With Progressive Multiplier (PM), MSFC is testing how to build a repeatable, data-driven fundraising process.
MSFC is testing whether consistent messaging across mail, email, and social media, informed by its own donor data, can turn social followers, an alumni network (~5,000 people), and other existing contacts into first-time donors. At this stage engagement matters more than revenue, and any gift, even $5, counts as a positive signal. Early signals include click and reply patterns, social engagement, and new names in the donor database after posts.
MSFC began by auditing three years of email data and five years of giving history to set baselines. It then ran an Instagram Story series with $5 recurring-gift calls to action. Student-centered social content continues, and polls are planned. A donor letter to a few hundred supporters is being tightened toward one page, with a bolded summary and a mid-letter ask. The mailing moved to after the November election to avoid election-season clutter, with a follow-up email planned. A three-email welcome series is written but not yet automated.
The first test is how donors respond to the post-election letter, measured against a September social baseline. MSFC will also see whether people-forward stories and photos lift engagement among the ~6,000 never-donated contacts, and whether mobile donation fixes turn more clicks into gifts. By April 2027, the team aims to have welcome-series automation and defined performance indicators in place. Staff capacity is a live question given election noise and the December conference. Costs above $1 per $1 raised would prompt a change in strategy. Analysis runs through January 2027.
MSFC is testing this approach during an unusually noisy and high-stakes period. Election season will flood donors with political email and mail, and MSFC risks dropping out of donors' minds unless its work is visibly connected to the moment. Policy shifts raise the stakes for its mission. A federal Medicaid reimbursement ban on Planned Parenthood is sunsetting, but Deep South states are expected to impose their own bans, which could limit training access if providers lose funding and students lose placements. MSFC's leadership calls the future provider pipeline the "forgotten front," because public attention goes to court cases and direct services rather than who will deliver care. Donors who understand that gap are the ones most likely to sustain this work.
MSFC also has little room for guesswork. It has one in-office staffer for mailings, a December conference that absorbs the whole team, and funders who have been uneven in disbursing grants. In this setting, testing small changes to timing, mobile giving, and messaging is a practical way to decide where limited time and dollars go. For PM, the experiment is a chance to show that advisory support can help a small team ask the right questions, read its own data, and design tests independently after the engagement ends.