Children’s Cancer Research Fund increased donation volume on Giving Tuesday by 76% year-over-year with GoFundMe Pro
Mission
To support the research of bright scientists across the country whose ideas can make the greatest impact for children fighting cancer
Challenge
Elevate Giving Tuesday fundraising beyond a standard year-end effort and maximize engagement across multiple channels
Solution
Create a highly branded, customized, and urgent Giving Tuesday campaign using GoFundMe Pro’s Campaign Studio that significantly boosts donation volume and recurring gift acquisition
“One of the things that I’ve found over the years is, if you ask donors for $5, you’ll get $5, whether or not the donor could’ve given $50. Intelligent Ask Amounts helps boost what people were willing to give.”
– Katie Arcand, Marketing Cloud Manager
Giving Tuesday results year over year*:
76% increase
in donation volume
2x
recurring gift acquisition
Nearly doubled
email revenue
*Based on 2024-2025 GoFundMe Pro data and CCRF-provided data
Creating a branded, urgent campaign experience
This was the first year that the Children’s Cancer Research Fund (CCRF) created a dedicated campaign for Giving Tuesday, rather than incorporating it into its overall year-end campaign. The team chose to leverage GoFundMe Pro’s Campaign Studio to create a unified, branded campaign and consolidate traffic from all channels, including paid media, email, SMS, and social media.
To encourage giving, the CCRF team customized its campaign to create a sense of urgency and connection:
- Branding and impact: The campaign featured official Giving Tuesday branding and used impact tiles to clearly demonstrate to supporters how their donations would make a difference.
- Embedded video: A powerful, story-driven PSA video was embedded directly on the campaign, allowing donors to watch without being redirected to a new page.
- Dynamic urgency: The team tracked a visible progress bar throughout the day, increasing the goal at key points to sustain urgency and excitement.
With Studio, I can customize the look and feel of the page and weave in rich storytelling that draws donors in and clearly shows the impact of their gift. Having everything on a single page is incredible because we don’t lose momentum by sending them elsewhere to learn more or watch a video.
Leveraging data to maximize returns
CCRF used the same Studio campaign across all channels, tracking performance with source codes and UTMs, which proved critical to their success. The result: CCRF raised almost double the amount through email compared to previous years, a success the team attributes to its compelling Studio campaign and strong analytics.
With the analytics we have set up, we were able to see what was working and what wasn’t, so we can continue to iterate next year. Being able to have that data help shape our campaigns is incredibly powerful.
The team also implemented GoFundMe Pro’s Intelligent Ask Amounts, which uses donor history to suggest personalized giving amounts. This helped CCRF increase contributions, including more than doubling recurring gift acquisition year-over-year. These conscious efforts led to a 76% increase in donation volume on Giving Tuesday compared to the previous year.
Katie’s GoFundMe Pro tips:
- Utilize source codes and UTM parameters to track campaign performance and identify which channels are driving revenue. This data is essential for shaping future strategy.
- Always check the mobile view of your campaigns to ensure that the most critical elements, such as the call-to-action, donation form, and progress bar, are visible above the fold and that the page flows intuitively for donors on their phones.
Intelligent Ask Amounts
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