Founded in 1977, the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) has spent nearly five decades advancing civil and human rights for LGBTQ individuals and their families through impact litigation, public policy, and public education. As NCLR navigated an unprecedented wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation across the country, the organization recognized the need to strengthen and diversify their fundraising approaches to ensure sustainable support for their critical work.
Overview
With a grant from Progressive Multiplier, NCLR launched their Groundswell Campaign to expand their Impact Club (monthly sustainers) and grassroots donor base through two experimental approaches: peer-to-peer (P2P) fundraising and text-to-give programs.
The campaign tested whether personal networks and mobile technology could open new pathways to financial support, particularly among younger donors. By activating board members as fundraisers and exploring text messaging as a donor engagement tool, NCLR sought to establish best practices that would set the stage for sustainable growth in an increasingly digital fundraising landscape.
Key Strategies & Tactics
NCLR's Groundswell Campaign consisted of two distinct experiments designed to test new donor acquisition and engagement strategies:
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Board P2P Campaign: Engaging and activating board members as fundraisers to expand NCLR's donor base through their personal networks using JustGiving, integrated with their existing Raiser's Edge database
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Email List P2P Campaign: Inviting NCLR's broader email list to become active fundraisers and create their own fundraising pages to support the organization
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Text-to-Give Program: Growing mobile subscribers through email and social media opt-in campaigns, then converting them to donors via Mobile Commons platform
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Database Infrastructure: Completing five years of comprehensive database cleanup to ensure healthy data systems could support new fundraising tools and accurate donor attribution
Lessons Learned
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Personal Relationships Drive P2P Success
Peer-to-peer fundraising works best when rooted in genuine personal relationships—identifying the right peers matters more than broad outreach
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List Quality Is Foundation
Significant list cleaning and analysis is essential before launching new fundraising initiatives to improve performance and targeting
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Socialize Participation Publicly
Making fundraising activities visible helps normalize participation and encourages others to get involved
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Connect to Existing Success
P2P campaigns perform better when connected to other already-successful campaigns as an enhancement measure rather than standalone efforts
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Board Members Are Untapped Assets
When properly activated with the right tools and support, board members represent a strong, underutilized fundraising resource
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Infrastructure Before Innovation
Clean data systems and comprehensive database management are prerequisites for successfully implementing new fundraising technologies
The Multiplier Effect
Impact
The Groundswell Campaign produced valuable insights about where NCLR's fundraising strengths truly lie. The board P2P campaign exceeded expectations, demonstrating that when equipped with the right tools and support materials, board members could effectively leverage their personal networks to bring new supporters into NCLR's community. The campaign successfully expanded the donor base with 34 individuals who had never given to NCLR before—a significant achievement for first-time P2P efforts. The board's success revealed an important truth: fundraising rooted in personal relationships and fiduciary responsibility generates stronger results than broad, impersonal appeals. Board members received the same support materials and follow-up as the general email list, but their personal commitment and existing connections made the critical difference in conversion rates.
The challenges encountered with the email list P2P campaign and text-to-give program proved equally instructive. The broader constituency showed little appetite for taking on fundraising roles, signaling that NCLR needed more targeted outreach to identify motivated volunteers rather than mass appeals. The text program faced hurdles in its foundational phase—growing opt-ins required more time and infrastructure than anticipated, including updated privacy policies, improved newsletter functionality, and consistent communication rhythms before making fundraising asks. These mixed results illuminated a crucial insight: NCLR's 47-year-old database required significant modernization before new technologies could deliver their full potential. Five years of cleanup work had addressed duplicate fields, inconsistent custom field usage, and outdated record structures, but implementing mobile engagement and P2P attribution revealed additional data quality needs, particularly around mobile phone field accuracy and donor source tracking.
Originally motivated by the need to diversify revenue streams and respond flexibly to an unprecedented wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation, the Groundswell Campaign ultimately provided NCLR with a roadmap for sustainable growth. The board P2P success demonstrated that personal networks remain powerful fundraising channels when properly activated. The text-to-give program, while not yet converting subscribers to donors, established essential infrastructure and compliance protocols for future mobile fundraising efforts.
Moving forward, NCLR plans to build on these learnings by creating permanent fundraising pages for board members when they join, connecting P2P campaigns to specific legal cases and programs, and continuing to grow their mobile subscriber base before making fundraising asks. The organization is also considering framing P2P as a volunteer opportunity and targeting database segments that resemble the board—long-term donors and super volunteers with strong personal connections to the mission.
