Tap Cancer Out is an organization that brings together the Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) community to fundraise for cancer-fighting beneficiaries. Fighters sign up to compete, and along with training for the tournaments, they had the option to do peer-to-peer fundraising.

We were brought in to help boost their fundraising efforts and my piece was to rebuild their email strategy.

Their original email strategy was solid, but it was a bit dry and approached the participants in two ways: either you were a fundraiser, or you weren’t. After doing a handful of interviews with past fundraisers, we realized we could be far more effective by breaking them up a bit more. So we opted for four categories: team captains + gym owners (those who would be on the front lines, inspiring and encouraging others), adult fundraisers, child fundraisers, and non-fundraisers.

Why the split between adults and kids? Because there are certain things kids can get away with when asking for money that adults can’t. You wouldn’t open the door to a 30-year-old guy, asking you to give money for a charity you may never have heard of, but for a 6 year old? Carrying around their own iPad with their donation page and being a-d-o-r-a-b-l-e? Take all my money. Conversely, we could tell adult fundraisers all the ways they could use social media or leverage certain tactics at work, places that kids don’t have access to.

Additionally, I suggested switching the flow for fighters who signed up just to fight, and not to fundraise. They were fed additional emotionally charged information about the beneficiary–in this case, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, and the kids ALSF support. It was geared to tug at their heartstrings and at least give some effort into fundraising for the kids in the fight for their lives.

Like many fundraising efforts, there were premiums given when fighters met certain levels. The current emails would thank someone for reaching a new level, and let them know how far they had to get to be at the next level–essentially “thanks for raising $600, Brad! Go raise $400 more! Now!” One of the biggest changes (and at first, a harder sell) was to add an email to the flows for when people were close to meeting a premium level, to encourage them, offer additional fundraising times, and show a lot of gratitude. We were communicating with BJJ fighters, who have a reputation for being tough, but they’re still people. They need to be nurtured and encouraged–coached into bringing in more dollars. The encouraging emails were more “Brad! You’re awesome! You’re just $100 away from fundraising $600 and earning a hella cool backpack. If you’re out of ideas on how to ask people to donate, shoot us an email - we want to help!” Note: final copy of the emails was far less bro-y, but you get the idea.

The team also did the best practices of A/B subject line tests and promoted the tournaments on social, so while my new magic emails can’t claim all the credit for the boost in money raised (also, TCO had additional tournaments, etc.), overall, there was a substantial boost to their donations. In their tournament season, they raised over $870,000, an 87% increase from the year before! By speaking to people (even super tough, kind of scary BJJ fighters) like they’re people, tugging at their heartstrings, and encouraging them along the way, we were able to boost much-needed funds that went to two groundbreaking kids’ cancer research studies.