Case study

United Way Greater Toronto

Five years, a static budget, and $10 million raised.

This case study began as a Data Sciences engagement, prior to Phil joining forces with DS in 2026. Today, this same work sits within a broader integrated offering. Together, Phil and Data Sciences combine more than 25 years of nonprofit strategy, communications, fund development and governance expertise with performance marketing and analytics – helping nonprofits plan with clarity, connect more deeply with careholders, and make data-informed decisions that amplify impact.

How we grew United Way Greater Toronto’s digital fundraising program without growing its budget, and what that meant for the thousands of people across the region who depend on their work.

The Challenge

United Way Greater Toronto (UWGT) fights poverty. Across Toronto, Peel, and York, they fund programs that keep people housed, help families through crises, and build communities. This work never stops. Plus, as we all know, it’s become more difficult and more expensive to grab people’s attention online.

When UWGT came to us, they faced a challenge that will resonate with anyone in nonprofit fundraising: a more competitive landscape, shifting donor behaviour, and multiple campaigns to run across the organization. On top of that, urgency was even higher for UWGT: they were confronted by the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic, which meant all operations had to shift online–and fast. At the same time, there was no extra budget to meet any of these challenges. UWGT’s mandate was to grow revenue, not spend. To find a way to do more, with exactly what they had.

Our approach

We built UWGT’s digital program into a mature, always-on fundraising ecosystem through three structured phases. Each phase built on the one that came before it, compounding learning and audience intelligence over time rather than resetting with each campaign cycle.

At the start of our partnership, we built an always-on, 365-day-a-year digital presence across Google SEM, the Google Display Network, Bing, and Meta. In plain terms, this meant UWGT was consistently visible when people were searching, browsing, or engaging on social platforms. Our audience strategy was intentional from the outset. We used behavioural signals, high-value donor lookalikes, monthly-donor prospects, and engagement-based segments — meaning we focused not only on reaching more people, but on reaching people who were more likely to care, engage, donate, or become long-term supporters. Early awareness campaigns helped rebuild UWGT’s brand visibility while conversion pathways were tightened to make the donation journey more efficient. Working through COVID-era volatility meant protecting return on ad spend was the immediate priority, but the broader strategy was always about building the foundation for stronger results over time.

We expanded into YouTube, Google PMax and Demand Gen, and optimized Google Grants to be in line with ever-changing requirements to utilize its $10,000 base grant. Our creative strategy evolved to include narrative formats, motion storytelling, and tax-credit messaging. The goal here was to reach new donors where they were and speak to them in ways that resonated with them.

The program became fully integrated and always-on: awareness and fundraising campaigns reinforced each other continuously, 365 days a year. This year-round storytelling warmed audiences to UWGT’s mission and fed directly into the donation funnel. So, when people were ready to give, UWGT was already on top of mind.

By FY2024, our awareness and fundraising campaigns had become fully integrated. The audiences we had been building since day one were now deeply evolved. Through multiple years of testing and analysis, we knew what creative did and did not work. And because we had never paused between campaigns, we weren’t warming up a cold audience: UWGT was already on the minds of people most likely to give. That continuous presence (ever live and ever in the market) is the core of why the numbers kept growing even as the budget remained the same year over year.

The Results

Over five years, with media spend largely flat, UWGT achieved sustained and measurable growth across every metric. These are not just numbers. Each represents a donor who chose to give back to their communities, and programs could continue because the money was there to fund them:

  • $10M: total digital revenue raised, FY2020 to FY2025
  • 350-650%: Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) sustained over four consecutive years
  • +22% donation volume growth, year over year in FY2024
  • 2x average donation value
  • 0.53 to 2.03%: conversion rate improvement over the engagement

What this means for your organization

You care deeply about your community and have to work hard to get the resources to sustain it. You already know what it means to care deeply about your community while working hard to get the resources to sustain it. You know the weight of a budget conversation when every dollar cut is a program reduced or a person underserved.

UWGT’s growth trajectory is more than just a fundraising program. It increased UWGT’s capacity to show up for people. More of them. More consistently. With more resources behind the work.

Every dollar recovered through better targeting, stronger creative, and smarter optimization was a dollar that went back into the community.

When a fundraising program underperforms, it’s never just a number on a report. It’s directly tied to the impact your work can have with the community. The question worth sitting with is what an efficient digital program would make possible for the people you serve, not whether your digital program could be more efficient.

UWGT’s growth came from disciplined expertise: better targeting, sharper creative, and continuous testing, refined month over month until $10 million was raised on a static budget. And that kind of result doesn’t come from one good campaign. It comes from a team that knows exactly where the gains are and how to capitalize on them.

What made it possible to sustain that work for five years? Trust. The most meaningful gains came after years of shared learning and a relationship built on mutual commitment to the mission, a relationship that can’t be rushed and doesn’t happen with just any vendor. For nonprofits navigating digital fundraising, the real question isn’t which platform to use. It’s who has the expertise to help you achieve the results you need to grow your mission and support your community.