LifeMoves

Helping a Homelessness Organization Reach New Heights

We helped one of the largest providers of services for the homeless in the country reach unprecedented levels of growth to meet increased needs in Silicon Valley.

Organizational & Brand Strategy
Brand Positioning, Design & Management
Fundraising Campaigns
Fundraising Event Promotion
Corporate Sponsorship Materials
Strategic Messaging & Presentations
CEO Letters & Communications
Annual Reports & Newsletters
Thought Leadership & Client Success Videos
Website Pages & Enhancements
Google Ad Grant Management

A growing homelessness crisis demands effective approaches and funding. LifeMoves tapped into our strategic branding, marketing, and fundraising services to propel the organization to take on this challenge. With a new CEO at the helm, we helped position LifeMoves for success. Over the three years we have worked with this nonprofit, its annual revenue grew from $38 million to $65 million due largely to new government contracts.

Select Results

19% increase

in total amount raised v. prior year

2020 YEAR-END CAMPAIGN

42% increase

in total amount raised v. prior year

2021 YEAR-END CAMPAIGN

43% increase

in average gift amount for lower-level donors

2021 YEAR-END CAMPAIGN

65% increase

in average gift amount for higher-level donors

2021 YEAR-END CAMPAIGN

100% increase

in number of donations by lapsed donors v. prior year

2020 SPRING APPEAL

100% increase

in amount donated by lapsed donors v. prior year

2020 SPRING APPEAL

43% increase

in monthly givers over 2 years

2021 – 2023

475% increase

increase in the amount raised v. prior year

2021 RIDE TO END HOMELESSNESS

73% increase

increase in the amount raised v. prior year

2022 RIDE TO END HOMELESSNESS

The Challenge

LifeMoves first brought on Red Rooster Group to improve its fundraising in March 2020, just as COVID started. The organization needed to keep its 7,000 clients safe and re-trench for the new realities of lockdowns. Since then, the closing of businesses exacerbated the already unprecedented homeless situation due to rising home prices in Silicon Valley. LifeMoves needed to raise money for the short term and develop its brand and fundraising outreach to address growing needs.

Transforming an Organization

Over the past three years, Red Rooster Group has worked to enhance the organization’s strategic perspective, brand story, fundraising outreach, and marketing communications.

Our brand repositioning work helped reshape perceptions of the organization from a provider of services locally, to a leader that has been recognized by the state with solutions that can be adopted elsewhere. LifeMoves built one of the first modular, interim housing facilities in Northern California (whose opening was attended by the Governor) and won contracts for six more sites, including one of the largest in Northern California.

We have managed fundraising campaigns that have brought back lapsed donors and increased the amounts raised, including their largest campaign ever, and promoted fundraising events that attracted key audiences such as high-level donors and elected officials.

Our strategic advice, research, and communications have elevated the organization as it introduced its strategic plan, attracted new corporate and community partners, and set a strong foundation for success.

By introducing new fundraising ideas and best practices, we have increased the organization’s level of sophistication so that it can continue to improve results.

How We Helped

Strategy

Organizational, Fundraising, Marketing, Branding, & Thought Leadership

Leveraged the CEO as an authoritative voice on the issue to position the organization as a national leader on homelessness.
Developed strategy presentations to convey the needs of homelessness in Silicon Valley and attract funding from corporations.
Supported the organization’s strategic plan by creating a presentation, summary document, webpage, and promoting a series of online events to introduce the strategic plan to high-end donors, government officials, and community partners.

Individual Fundraising

Produce two campaigns per year (spring and year-end), including developing concepts, narrative, and theme, writing and designing direct mail packages and email series, producing videos, creating landing pages and donation pages, social media posts, and handling campaign management. Introduced personalization, custom gift arrays, and efficient mailing techniques.

Major Donor Fundraising

Promote two Principal Giving events annually including all digital strategy, outreach, presentation, journals, and sponsorship packages. Created customized materials and managed customized emailing for 7 Principal Gift Officers.

Fundraising Events

Promote the annual Ride to End Homelessness peer-to-peer fundraising event. Created brand strategy, designed new event logo, developed segmented email strategy and managed all emails, and design other promotion (advertising, banners, etc.). The ride has grown from $40K before us, to $400k in revenue.

Corporate Giving

Support the corporate sponsorship department with a range of strategic and marketing initiatives to shore up corporate support including researching and developing a presentation on homelessness in Silicon Valley and materials to promote sponsorship opportunities for the new interim housing sites and other opportunities.
Created materials to solicit sponsorship naming rights on LifeMoves facilities.

Brand Management

Evolved the organization’s brand to be more authentic — from merely showing happy outcomes to conveying the vulnerabilities of people experiencing homelessness and the complexities of their circumstances.
Balanced their story of interim housing sites with their services, crafting the narrative around their customized, and comprehensive approaches to helping people achieve stability.
Stewarded their brand and updated their colors and overall look to be more dynamic.

Organizational Collateral

Crafted their organizational story and corporate collateral materials.
Designed banners and pop-up displays for community events.
Produce their annual Impact Report.
Write and design their quarterly print and email newsletters.
Write and design the monthly Keygivers email newsletter for monthly supporters.

Website

Set up landing pages in WordPress and donation pages in Classy to support fundraising campaigns.
Create new website sections and pages and update website content as needed.

Videos

Produce videos to tell the organization’s story and elevate its profile. Includes scripting, on-site shooting, and all post-production work.
- Thought Leadership Videos (click and scroll down)
- Client stories
- Services videos
- New Sites
- Other Videos

Communications Planning

Conducted an analysis of all emails sent by the organization over a 2-year period by audience and results, open rate, click rate, etc.
Handle dozens of emails for the organization over the course of the year (developing schedules. writing, designing, testing and approvals, coordination of URLs and lists, documenting, and reporting).

Fundraising & Marketing Continuity

Maintained all outreach, fundraising, website updates, etc. through 2 Executive Directors, a complete turnover of the Marketing Team, and new Chief Philanthropy Officer, and several new VPs of Development, providing stability and continuity throughout the organization’s growth.