Ep. 192: Why Million-Dollar Nonprofits Run SPRINT™ Campaigns
EPISODE 192
Why Million-Dollar Nonprofits Run SPRINT™ Campaigns
About the Episode:
Most nonprofit leaders assume that million-dollar organizations are doing something they can't: bigger teams, bigger events, bigger budgets. But when you actually look at how high-growth nonprofits raise unrestricted money at scale, the secret isn't size; it's speed.
Today, I break down why million-dollar-plus organizations run five to ten times as many fundraising campaigns per year as smaller nonprofits, and why that rhythm (not the gala or the grant cycle) is what actually drives sustainable funding growth. I make the case for short, focused, online SPRINT™ campaigns as the modern fundraising engine your organization can start using now, regardless of team size, budget, or donor list size. If you've been waiting for the perfect moment, the bigger team, or the windfall grant to grow your funding, this episode is your wake-up call.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
Why high-growth nonprofits run 5–10x more campaigns per year (not bigger ones)
How over-reliance on galas, grants, and signature events keeps organizations stuck waiting for funding
Why speed is the real fundraising advantage, and how SPRINT™ campaigns collapse timelines
The difference between posting a donation link and running an actual campaign
Real client results: from Live Music Project to Sharing Hope Africa
Why a small donor list isn't a reason to fundraise less; it's a reason to sprint smarter
It’s not your stories—it’s how you’re telling them. If your amazing work isn’t getting the attention (and donations) it deserves, it’s time for a messaging shift. The Brave Fundraiser’s Guide guide gives you 10 done-for-you donor prompts to make your message impossible to ignore. Get it for free here! https://christinaedwards.krtra.com/t/xKuLs6tOiPZa
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“Million-dollar-plus organizations run easily 5 to 10x more fundraising campaigns a year than smaller organizations.”
“High-growth nonprofits don't run bigger fundraisers; they're running them more often.”
“Million-dollar-plus organizations don't rely on a single or handful of moments; they're creating campaign rhythms.”
“High-growth organizations are using technology to speed up their funding; they're using modern campaign systems.”
“Speed is the fundraising advantage.”
“Momentum raises money much faster than perfection and waiting.”
Episode Resources:
From $2,500 to $10,825: How a Classical Music Nonprofit Won with a SPRINT Campaign
The $20K Pivot: Canceling a Gala and Raising More with Sharing Hope Africa
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
$10K in 10 Days: The SPRINT Campaign™ to Fund Q1 - Fast, Online, and Without Events or Grants
Double Your Donations - Raise More From Your Laptop Without Chasing Grants or Galas
Easy Emails For Impact™ - Turn Your Inbox into an Income Stream
Donations on Demand: Build a $5K Email Campaign System in 30 min/week
The SPRINT Method™ - Fundraise Like a Pro, 5 Figures At a Time
Connect with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
-
*Links may be affiliate links which means I may earn a commission at no cost to you.
Christina Edwards 0:24most nonprofits assume a million dollar plus organizations are doing something totally different. They're layering on strategies that just don't work or would be impossible for organizations with an annual budget under a million more staff, more marketing, more agencies, more support, more team, more infrastructure, definitely a kick ass board, right? But when you actually look at how many of them raise unrestricted money, especially at scale, at that volume, you see something surprising. They're not just doing bigger things. They're not doing other strategies that wouldn't work for your organization, they're doing things faster, million dollar plus organizations run easily five to 10x more fundraising campaigns a year than smaller organizations. I am not saying more galas, more golf outings, more events, more raffles, more five K's, oh, I'm saying more campaigns, more short, focused, online fundraisers. That means sometimes we're running campaigns from the desk, the kitchen table, and definitely their strong laptop fundraiser. So high growth nonprofits don't run bigger fundraisers. They're running them more often. You see where I'm going with this. They are sprinting more often. So most grant they are sprinting more often. So most organizations structure their year around grant cycles, a signature gala or spring event year end giving right, go full court for those last two months of the year. Everything revolves around those few central moments. They're big, right?
Christina Edwards 2:21
so the assumption is that fundraising has to be traditional, comfortable, what we know, what we've always done, big, slow, to plan, complicated, right? There's all of this effort put into a handful of signature events or signature campaigns. But that assumption is exactly what slows organizations down. Million dollar plus organizations don't rely on a single or handful of moments. In fact, they're creating campaign rhythms. That's what we're going to dig in today, is these short bursts, these short sprint campaigns that can change the trajectory of your funding growth.
Christina Edwards 3:25
now executive directors, fundraisers and your board may often assume, hey, we can't do that because we don't have a big enough team. We would need more staff, more marketers, a major gifts officer, somebody in charge of events, somebody in charge of just digital a social media team, more capacity to do all of this to raise more. But what's actually happening is different. Many high growth organizations are just using technology to speed up their funding. They're using modern campaign systems, and that's why I created this concept of sprints. That's why I created the entire SPRINT Method™, because they understand something critical, which is, if you want more donors in your pipeline, and I know you do, you need more opportunities for people to give. So I want you to think about your favorite retailer, the one that you're like, you know what? Whenever I shop online, there or wherever, whenever I go in person, like I always see so many things I want to buy. Maybe I come for one thing, I buy five things, like, think of your go to place. So what am I going to think of right now, I'm just going to think of anthropology. So I'm going to think about them. So whether I'm shopping in person or online, can you imagine if anthropology only reached out to me and only ran a couple, a handful, three signature sales promotions a year. They're like Christina, it's time to shop for the holidays. It's time to shop for spring. And then one sale a year. They would not get my business. I would forget about them. But instead, they're telling me about a February edit or a summer collection. Or when swimwear drops or the latest home decor, right? They're thinking about different ways they can target different segments of their audiences, and you should too, and you can too. You could do this with a small team. So if you want more donors in your pipeline, you need more opportunities for them to give. And the internet, the World Wide Web, makes that so easy and scalable because you don't need a ballroom. You don't need an event planner. You do not hear me on this. Need a six month planning cycle. Here's what you need, ready, a laptop, a clear message, a strong donation tool, a focus campaign. Boom. You've got a sprint. We walk you through the entire system inside my program, The SPRINT Method™ literally step by step, FS through T. Sprint is an acronym, and we spell it out for you inside that it doesn't have to scale. Your fundraising doesn't have to scale because of staff size. It doesn't have to scale because you suddenly got a budget to run a second event, or because you introduced a comedy night or a raffle, or you got a windfall, a once in a lifetime windfall from a grant funder. No it can scale because you have a repeatable system to raise five figures in every single fundraiser.
Christina Edwards 6:39
So the big mistake I see is why I wanted to record this episode, is this idea that organizing, fundraising around slow structures is the key, because that's the old playbook, like, that's tried and true air quotes. Y'all, that does not work anymore, right? I've never been more. I want the type of consumer that's like I expect this now quickly. Have you ever ordered something and it took I recently ordered tangent, y'all, I recently ordered a small piece of furniture for my office, like a little filing office storage piece. I ordered it over the holidays, and I didn't look closely. I just assumed it would come in the next week. Ish, right? Because most direct to consumer websites are that way, right? I knew that it wasn't like made to order or anything like that, so I just assumed it would come in the next week. Ish, maybe two weeks at the most. This thing took three months to arrive. I recently just received it, and it was such a wild experience, because as a consumer, I have now been trained like, Sure, there are some vendors who would tell you, ahead of time, hey, this is back ordered. You're not going to get it for a while, but as a consumer, I've been trained I'm going to get that pretty quick, right? And so now that was such a bizarre like out of left field customer service experience that if I need another shelf or a piece of furniture, I would not go back to that company because they kept just coming back being like, yeah, it's, it's, it's getting, you know, it's in route or something like that. And I am a consumer, just like you. And consumers are donors. Donors are consumers. So same thing goes here. We expect things quicker, right? We don't want just one in person event or one year end fundraiser to contribute to your organization. We want lots of different opportunities to build trust with your organization, to support your cause, maybe to support a specific program, maybe to be drawn in by monthly giving. And you can't do that if you are narrowing in and saying, listen, we're only going to fundraise a handful of times each each year, and that's that. So those things have a place, the grant cycles, the in person events that fundraisers, the big events that take months to plan, but when they become the backbone of your strategy, your or your organization gets stuck waiting for funding, waiting for the grant decision, waiting for the event, for the like expenses, to clear the net profit, to show up right, waiting for the perfect moment. Meanwhile, organizations that work with me are doing something different. What are they doing? They're experimenting. They're running these sprint campaigns, three, 710, day campaigns, quick pops, testing, messaging, inviting donors in more often, and I'm excited to share with you what that's created for them.
Christina Edwards 9:37
They are collapsing timelines. They are raising more in a shorter period of time, two weeks, 30 days, than they have raised all quarter or sometimes all year. The problem isn't that nonprofits ask too often. The problem is actually that they wait too long. So the advantage here is speed. Speed is the fundraising advantage. And when our clients join the spring. Method they lost, launched their first campaign, oftentimes in less than two weeks. How long does it take to write a grant? How long does it take to hear back from the funder? How much time are you spending doing that, planning the big event, the 5k sprint campaigns let you move faster test ideas faster you get to test are we ready to put our recurring giving program forward. Are we ready to fundraise with this particular story in mind? Are we ready to build up this, this concept, this idea, and introduce it to the world? You could just test those ideas. Are our donors responding to this story? Ooh, maybe not. Let's run it this way. Instead, you have that speed, and that speed creates the momentum, not the burnout cycle that we see so often in this sector. So that momentum raises money so much faster than perfection than waiting.
Christina Edwards 11:33
So let's look at some of our sprint client examples. Megan from the live music project. She came to me and she had tried lots of different things. As a solo Executive Director, without a team, she came in, she ran her sprint campaign, a focused campaign that rallied donors around a clear moment, a clear message, and exceeded expectations. She raised 109% of her goal, five plus figures, right? So instead of relying on some outdated framework that wasn't working, or a little bit of this, a little bit of that she came in and locked in in a very short period of time, her biggest online fundraiser yet. And then they're sharing hope Africa. They came to me ready to spend a lot of money putting on a gala, putting on a traditional fundraising event, because that's what they were told. That's the way to fundraise. They decided, instead of spending spending multiple five figures on running an event, let's use a campaign based system.
Christina Edwards 12:40
They ran their first sprint campaign. It was a huge success. They ran. They went on to run multiple sprint campaigns. I remember one where they were like, Christina, we hit our goal within the first five minutes of the event. So now they have a repeatable system. They're bringing in recurring donors. They're able to fully fund out their program for the for the full year, like head on the pillow, sleeping at night knowing this program is fully funded. Like that's the power of a focused campaign. That focus creates momentum, that focus invigorates your board, that focus invigorates your new donors. It really becomes this sort of like a tipping point, this positive tipping point where suddenly your organization is top of mind for a lot of donors and a lot of donor prospects in a way that you had dreamed of but hadn't quite worked before the campaign action and the sprint system does exactly this, right? It's not the size of the campaign that creates the the results, the number of Gala tables or tickets sold, right? It's the support in the system that we teach inside sprint. So if you're thinking, listen, this sounds good at all, but I can't run more campaigns. I'm already doing so much. This is not about doing more, right? So instead of spending four six months planning one big make or break event, I remember when another executive director told me, we basically are funded by this one big event we do each year. And they had a huge dip in revenue one year. And I said to her, what happened? What happened on that year? Like hundreds of 1000s of dollar dip? And she said, Well, we weren't able to put on the event. We couldn't do the event that year. There was an illness. There was a few other factors. They couldn't put on the event like that is make or break. That is not a scalable way for your organization to grow, right? So instead of running, instead of being overwhelmed about like, oh, I can't do more campaigns, I want you to think about this isn't about doing more. This is about reallocating your time. So instead of months and months of planning, talking to caterers, talking how many of y'all are trying to solicit volunteers for your fun, run, for your raffle, for your Bingo Night, right? Like you're like, Please, will you help me with volunteer check in? I need some help, right? Your auction. Instead of all of that, your real, reallocating all of that time, and you're creating these focused. Short bursts, these short bursts of fundraising campaigns throughout the year. It's so much easier. It is so much easier. And sometimes I hear our audience is too small, like we can't fundraise online significantly because we don't really have a large group of donors online. And I say to you, that's exactly why these campaigns matter. The future of fundraising is here. It is online. It is from your laptop, and it is time for you to open your prospect pool of donors online, because you can only physically knock on doors, phone call and run so many events in a year. You can only have so many golf outings in bingo nights in a year, the future is online. Okay? It is online that is foundational. So those campaigns create moments where shorter supporters can share your vision. My favorite part about sprints is how many new donors come in through a Smart Campaign. So you can have, I'm looking at, let's see. Let's look at Megan. Megan had 135 donors come in through one of her sprint campaigns. Within that 135 oftentimes, we'll see over 50 new donors coming in. It's such a good pipeline for you to invite in new people to your audience, versus again, begging that volunteer, begging that for board member to buy a ticket to your gala table and then invite Nine neighbors who aren't really aligned with your cause. Yeah,
Christina Edwards 16:49
so if your audience is small, the answer isn't fewer campaigns. That answer isn't fewer, make or break it campaigns. It's actually better, shorter ones. Okay, if you're thinking, we tried this before we tried it doesn't work for us. We email all the time. We tried email fundraising. We've tried social media. I'll actually dig deeper and see yes, you sent some emails, you shared a donation link, you put some social posts out there. That is not a sprint campaign. That is not it. So don't tell yourself, we've tried this because you've set out and set up an online donation page. Our sprint campaigns weave in structure, timing, urgency, high converting language that converts and connects donors to your cause. So when organizations actually use this structure, that's when everything starts to click differently.
Christina Edwards 18:20
as I'm recording this, I'm looking out the window, and I'm looking at like, the beginning of spring blooms, and I'm thinking about how many of us have been like, Listen, I'm not a good gardener. I've tried gardening. Everything I buy just dies, right? And you look a little closer, and you're like, Yeah, I could go to bat. I could say, Listen, I've gotten the flowers. I dug the hole, I added the water, and none of them, none of them ever survive. Okay, let's look a little closer. Was this a full sun plant that you planted in the shade? Was the dirt like hard Georgia clay, and you actually need something that's like a softer soil for this plant to survive. Do you need to fertilize? Did you water once a week and expect that that would be enough? Guilty, right? It doesn't mean that you can't do this. It just means there were a couple things in the way of you hitting your goal. That's why I love group coaching so much. Is I can go in and triage it, I can go, Ooh, there was just a clay issue, or Ooh, it was a little acidic, or, Oh, we were planting a full sun plant in the shade. I've done that many times, right? So it can be just something as simple as as triaging your last campaign to make sure that your next campaign converts.
Christina Edwards 20:16
So inside The SPRINT Method™, which opens up for enrollment very, very soon nonprofits learn how to plan and launch focus campaigns quickly. And one of the reasons why I wanted to have this conversation is if your organization is not a new organization, if your organization has been around for 20 years, but maybe you haven't figured out how to transition from the gala or from the grant or from whatever your traditional fundraising engine is and you know, you want a modern way to fundraise from your laptop, you need to join sprint. Do not tell yourself, well, we are established. Well, we have a 20 year track record. But listen, if we are treading water and not moving forward, you may need to join The SPRINT Method™. The easiest thing you can do is you can always reach out to me. You can always send me an email or reach out to me on LinkedIn, and we can talk about where you fit, where you would be best served in my programs. Many people who join this sprint will launch their first campaign in less than two weeks. It is that easy. They're not waiting for perfect conditions. They're testing, they're iterating, they're learning. They're building that momentum. They're waking up their board. And that rhythm is what allows organizations to grow revenue quickly, quickly collapsing those timelines so you do not have to become a million dollar nonprofit first.
Christina Edwards 21:52
And in fact, million dollar organizations know that the future is online fundraising, and that they can have an arm that is grants, and they can have an arm that are a couple of handful of signature events, but when they want to bring in sustainable funding, when they want to bring in recurring monthly donors, they're gonna do it online first. That's the future. So they're they're adapting that same rhythm that you can adapt to for your organization, that speed, that experimentation, that campaign momentum. The organizations that grow fastest aren't the ones with the biggest teams. Please don't tell yourself that they're the ones that move first. They're the ones that are willing to sunset or pause. The other thing to go all in on, the thing that is low lift, high impact. If you want to learn more about how to run these campaigns, that's what we build inside The SPRINT Method™. You can go to splendidcourses.com/10k to sign up for our free webinar where I will show you the 10k Blueprint to raise five figures or more in your next campaign. All right, I'll see you next time bye.