Connecting with, equipping, and assisting the persecuted church around the world is far from easy work. But Open Doors Canada is committed to spreading these people’s stories and connecting them to the support they need to persevere in their faith and work.
Every year, Andrew Croft, communications manager, and his team build The World Watch List, which reports on countries where Christian persecution is highest. These materials can be used to influence policy, but the primary goal is to encourage prayer for Christians in need.
Andrew met Eric Dinius, his sales rep, and the rest of the Feathr team at The Nonprofit Innovation & Optimization Summit, and was drawn to the digital tools that he could use to expand his audience and gain more insights from their current website traffic.
The Open Doors Canada team implicitly understood the value of expanding their digital reach. Andrew said, “You have to invest money to try new things and to grow. And we didn't think the investment was too much.”
Andrew originally felt that he could take on many of the new digital campaigns, especially after seeing how easy the platform was to navigate. But during a call with Eric, the question surfaced, “Do you have the time?”
Andrew and his executive director discussed it further and felt that the price was right to see what the Feathr team could do for them.
And the Open Doors Canada team feels strongly that they made the right decision with Feathr Services. Andrew had a quick response when asked the secret of the campaign's success: “Letting the Feathr team do it.”
During November and December of 2022, Open Doors Canada brought in $41k in donations through their omnichannel marketing campaigns within Feathr. They engaged new supporters through geofencing and lookalike campaigns and are now actively tracking 51,000 people through their Feathr account.
Though Open Doors Canada had seen success during past email campaigns, they hadn’t seen anything like this before. One single email resulted in over $31k in donations, and Andrew credits the results to the synergy created through the campaigns working together.
He said, “I don't think we would have made $31,000 with that one email because we didn’t originally have the technology to follow up effectively with ads and reminders. So we may have had some immediate success, but I mean, it probably would have been a third of the results.”
The results speak for themselves, but for Andrew, the time gained allowed him to focus on serving his community above everything else.
Speaking about the impact on his time, he said: “I think that it really has had minimal impact on me because it's been a few emails here and there, approvals, and then allowing them to do it. It's allowed me to keep doing what I do. And it's an additional thing that's increasing our revenue.”