How Boys & Girls Club of Hawaii Raised $2.8M with Bloomerang + Qgiv
Boys & Girls Club of Hawaii empowers young people to reach their full potential by helping them become productive, caring, and responsible citizens. Serving students aged 7 to 17, they keep membership costs low by charging just $25 a year, granting access to a physically, emotionally, and intellectually safe space within the community.
The challenge
For Boys & Girls Club of Hawaii (BGCH), serving the community is their greatest mission–but it can also be their greatest challenge. “We serve about 10,000 kids on Oahu and Kauai through ten clubhouses and outreach services,” said Inglish Jones, Director of Development. The club’s membership fees cost families just $25 a year for elementary and middle school students and $10 for high school students, but it costs the BGCH about $2,500 per child to cover the expenses to provide full programming benefits. The Club’s programs include leadership training, sports leagues, tutoring services, Aloha Ina cultural programs, arts and media activities, and much more.
Improve Donor Experience
One of the most critical features that Jones was looking for with fundraising was a superb donor experience. “If a donor’s experience on a giving platform is not the best, they’re not going to return, and then that will absolutely affect our future funding,” she explained. “Before Bloomerang and Qgiv, we were lacking that donor connection and ease of service.” Proper communication through email, thank-you letters, and more is essential to build donor relationships.
Better Data Analysis
Prior to discovering Bloomerang and Qgiv, Jones and her team needed better, turnkey analytics to save time and cultivate better relationships. She firmly believes that all development staff should analyze the data that they take in as a nonprofit. “A lot of times, nonprofits get stuck in their ways,” said Jones. “But we can never get where we need to be unless we are evolving with the times, and Bloomerang and Qgiv are perfect for that.”
More Ease of Use
Jones also said their team was looking for a product that would make it easier for their team to collaborate and work more efficiently together. Quick product support and a simple-to-navigate platform were at the top of their wish list. “I’ve been so used to this awesome platform with Bloomerang and Qgiv that I completely forgot which software we were using before,” said Jones. “But to me, that’s an indication it wasn’t that great.”
Great Futures Day
Their biggest annual fundraiser is Great Futures Day, a national initiative celebrated by Boys & Girls Clubs across the country. “In 2017, Governor Ige officially declared it a day of advocacy in Hawaii, marking its importance in our community,” said Jones. “Everyone does it differently. But here in Hawaii, we launch our annual Great Futures campaign about six weeks ahead of time.” For BGCH, Great Futures Day is an “all-in campaign” where staff, board members, and a few dedicated community volunteers join forces to collect donations. “Each Clubhouse has its own board, and they’re responsible for raising funds to directly support their specific Club,” explained Jones.
“These efforts roll into the overall fundraising goal for the campaign. Corporate board members contribute by raising funds for the overarching campaign, and even our administrative staff forms a team to participate in the fundraising efforts.” All together, about 100 individuals contribute their efforts, creating a strong, united front for fundraising. Of course, a campaign of this scale isn’t without its challenges, but Jones has found the functionality and support of Qgiv and Bloomerang to be up to the task.
The solution
Over the past 4+ years, BGCH has used Bloomerang and Qgiv to successfully run not just their annual Great Futures Day peer-to-peer campaign, but all their fundraising, event, and donor management efforts. “Qgiv has been our go-to platform for campaign building over the past eight years,” said Jones. “It offers all the tools we need to run a solid campaign, from donation tracking to donor engagement. The only thing we change each year is the messaging to keep it fresh and relevant.” Great Futures Day also brings new supporters to the Club database, growing their donor pool.
The Bloomerang integration also enables the Club to “streamline our data, ensuring donor information and contributions are accurately tracked. This helps us manage donor relationships, stay organized, and run efficient campaigns” for Great Futures Day and beyond, year after year. Plus, with the integration of Bloomerang and Qgiv, BGCH can then create tailored follow-ups and personalize outreach to supporters to improve donor retention. “This consistent engagement encourages many of our donors to transition into recurring donors,” said Jones, “helping sustain our long-term fundraising goals.”
Gamification and Campaign Page Appearance
Qgiv offers many features and widgets on their event and donation pages, including thermometers, leaderboards, and badges. Jones said that when a supporter can see how close the Club is to its Great Futures Day goal, they’re more likely to give generously, making a thermometer not just aesthetically pleasing, but functional too. The Club also enhances the aesthetics of their campaign home page with videos, photos, and infographics to highlight campaign needs. Plus, each peer-to-peer participant gets their own customizable page to share their story, encouraging friends and family to donate. “Here in Hawaii, we’re very competitive, but we’re also all about Ohana and family,” she explained. “People like to see success, and when they can see it and capture it in real time, it really entices them to give.”
Multiple Payment Options
Jones also noted how important it is for nonprofits to provide multiple types of payment: “Before, we offered only one or two payment options, but donors who are ready to give want to give now!” Of course, donors can still give via the traditional methods of cash, check, and credit/debit card, as well as cover processing fees using Gift Assist on the Qgiv platform. Now with Express Donate, donors can also give in just a few clicks using a digital wallet like PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay, and more. “Qgiv has come a long way in the last couple of years, and now they offer every option a donor would want to pay. And that’s fantastic, because 53% of the population has some form of digital wallet on their phone.”
Communication
With Bloomerang and Qgiv, communication between the BGCH development staff and their donors is at an all-time high. “Bloomerang email tools help us follow up with donors, send thank-yous, and encourage ongoing support, all while tracking engagement,” said Jones. “Qgiv fundraising team pages and donor messaging features help keep our teams motivated and engaged.” Qgiv’s participant resource center also includes documents for team leaders to offer to event participants, like fundraising letter samples, registration tips, social media templates, and a case for support. These tools ensure a smooth, consistent experience for everyone involved in the campaign.
Fundraising and Donor Strategy Ideas
Nonprofits can also treat Bloomerang and Qgiv as a learning opportunity, which Jones has found herself doing often. She loves how new feature releases inspire strategies for better donor relationships. “When you see those updates, you realize, ‘Oh, we’ve got to be doing this or using that feature,’” said Jones. “So I use Bloomerang and Qgiv to educate myself on improving donor relations.” She also regularly learns new things from our support teams. “You sign up for this software, and you have a team of folks who are there when you have a question,” Jones said. “Now, our organization is more focused on data and able to dig in to see what worked and what didn’t.” The platforms have scaled alongside BGCH as the nonprofit continues to grow and their staff continue to improve donor engagement.
Automatic Donor Receipts
Before working with Bloomerang and Qgiv, Jones described her team writing generic thank-you notes in bulk at the beginning of the year, meaning repeat donors would get the exact same “personal” note more than once. The Club can now access donor and gift data immediately after an event, as well as automate donation receipts and strategic thank-you messages to reach donors sooner. “We can segment donors into groups and make sure we’re thanking them properly and in a timely manner,” said Jones.
Segmentation & Identifying Major Gift Opportunities
In addition to the small gifts in large volume that make up most of the Great Future Days campaign, Bloomerang donor segmentation tools also enable BGCH to identify potential major donors based on their giving history and engagement levels. “This helps us create focused outreach efforts for high-capacity donors, improving our success rate for securing larger contributions,” said Jones. “It allows us to group all major events/initiatives, planned giving prospects, new donors, and monthly donors.”
Sponsorships
Sponsorships are a crucial part of the success of Great Futures Day for the Club, and Qgiv’s rotating sponsor widget and custom sponsor pages are the perfect way to show them off. “We prominently display sponsor logos and names on our Qgiv donation pages, so they get the visibility they deserve,” said Jones. “We also track all sponsor interactions in Bloomerang to ensure proper follow-up and stewardship, maintaining strong sponsor relationships year-round.”
“We don’t have as many challenges anymore, because Qgiv is answering all of my questions before I even have them,” said Jones. “It’s like they thought of everything before I even needed to think about it.”
The results
Over the past four years, Jones reported that the Club has raised more than $2.8 million during their Great Futures Day campaigns alone. “We absolutely exceeded our donation amount from the previous year, which we do consistently year after year,” she said. “The more we learn about the Qgiv platform and the different features it has to offer, the more our donor amount continues to rise.”
Each year, the goal is to increase both the number of donors and the amount raised through the Great Futures campaign. “We track year-over-year growth in both areas, with particular emphasis on expanding our donor base,” she explained. “For instance, we’ve seen an average donor growth of 100 new donors annually.” The Club has also maintained roughly a 48% retention rate for Great Futures Day email campaign donors.
While their Great Future Day fundraising goals have increased each year, Club donors continue to rise to meet the challenge! Boys & Girls Club of Hawaii raised 110% of their $250,000 goal in 2020, 152% of their $275,000 goal in 2021, 114% of their $450,000 goal in 2022, and 135% of their $530,000 goal in 2023.
But fundraising is more than just numbers—it’s also about developing strong strategies to boost donor engagement. BGCH uses the extensive data available within Bloomerang and Qgiv to provide donors with the best experience possible. “You have to be able to analyze your data every single minute that you can,” said Jones, a self-proclaimed data junkie. “Almost daily I am looking at some kind of report, because I know it’s there for me to access, and it absolutely dictates my next move. It dictates everything I do for the Club.”
The takeaway
Boys & Girls Club of Hawaii has been able to combine Qgiv’s peer-to-peer fundraising platform with Bloomerang’s powerful CRM integration to host numerous successful fundraising events and facilitate effective post-event supporter stewardship through effective data analysis.
“We used to think about donor relations as just input and output. The goal was to thank them when you could, but like many nonprofits, most of our donors weren’t receiving timely or appropriate thanks. Now with Bloomerang and Qgiv constantly updating the system, it’s making things better for somebody on the development side whose mind is working a million miles a minute.”
"For us, donor relations used to be just input and output. Now with Bloomerang and Qgiv constantly updating the system, it’s constantly making things better for somebody on the development side whose mind is working a million miles a minute."
Donor retention rate
New donors annually
Peer-to-peer goal met
