Puyallup Food Bank
The Challenge
Jim Beaudoin Jr. is the CEO of Puyallup Food Bank, which carries a simple, yet powerful mission: “Serving our neighbors in need. They’re hungry and shouldn’t be.” Usually, the holidays are the busiest time for Jim and his team as they work to serve thousands of hungry citizens throughout the Puyallup Valley in Washington. However, as 2020 brought on the rapid onset of COVID-19 and ensuing economic ramifications for communities across America, Puyallup Food Bank needed to ramp up swiftly to meet the demand of thousands more hungry citizens.
With increased visibility from the community, including added exposure in the news, Jim expected an influx of donors wanting to support the Food Bank. However, with the majority of hands dedicated to operations and a development team of just one, he wanted to ensure that his team could handle an uptick – namely the reporting & stewardship expectations required to onboard new donors.
The Solution
When Jim learned he could use Harness to instantly replace his antiquated PayPal button with Harness Checkout, he was sold. “It’s so fast, easy, and on brand. We’re proud to share the different campaign pages as well as directing people to our website to donate.”
What already felt like a no-brainer decision was reaffirmed once the Puyallup team saw the effectiveness of automated stewardship via Auto-Messages. “We are able to provide our donors with instant recognition, as soon as they donate. We simply didn’t have the bandwidth to steward at that level before Harness. Many of those donors have already given again, which leads me to believe that our updates on donor impact are working.”
The Results
Prior to Harness, Puyallup Food Bank was using Paypal to process around $25,000/yr in online gifts. In their first 60 days on the Harness platform, Puyallup quadrupled their annual online giving total from last year. In fact, they’re on track to increase total online gifts by 21x in their first year with Harness!
Further, of the 304 donors that made a gift in the first 60 days of launching Harness, Smart Ask converted 51 of them into becoming monthly donors. “We’ve yet to make a monthly giving appeal and had just 5 [organic] monthly donors prior to Harness. Fast forward a few weeks and we’ve acquired over 50 monthly donors, without even having to ask! With the option for donors to cover fees and features such as Smart Ask, we’re unlocking pockets of revenue without having to change a thing. The ROI with Harness is immediate!”
We’ve unlocked pockets of revenue just by adding Harness Checkout to our website. The ROI was immediate!
Jim Beaudoin Jr.
CEO, Puyallup Food Bank