For this edition of Almabase Spotlights featuring K-12 Schools, we shine the spotlight on Westminster Christian Academy and their unique fundraising system. Westminster offered their donors a seamless interface which allowed donors to directly choose where their contributions went. The focus on a great donor experience led to Westminster’s fundraising success.  

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💡 An Idea to Create a Truly Seamless Donor Experience

While various institutions organize several fundraising campaigns for specific purposes, Westminster Christian Academy wanted to make the overall donor experience a lot more streamlined. They achieved this by urging donors to contribute towards a single fund - their Annual Fund. On the donation page, donors could choose a specific fund or appeal to make their gift to. The campaign was based on the idea of "One Ask. One Gift.", that leveraged the power of affinity based giving. For instance, parents were likely to direct their gift(s) towards different activities that were beneficial to their children.

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This system also enabled Westminster to make a larger ask from their donors, as their Annual Fund is essentially one big pot that contributes towards all their development activities. This unique method of raising funds for specific interests and affiliations made their campaign a huge success. The advancement team set an initial goal of $500,000, but were able to raise over $670,000 towards the end of the year. They also sent out “Thank-you” notes to donors who made a sizeable contribution. We love how the Annual Fund made the donor experience for Westminster’s constituents so seamless. 💙

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🌟 Our Source of Inspiration

Tom Adams is the Director of Strategic Advancement at Westminster Christian Academy. Tom has been in the Advancement space for over a year now. Prior to his role at Westminster, Tom was a Programs Specialist at Deloitte Consulting. Tom also served as a Sr. Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton.

Although relatively new to the industry, Tom has already made a great impact at Westminster. He believes that most jobs are 80% common sense and 20% skill.

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