0 Shares

About

East Side House is a community-based organization in the Bronx that works with schools and community centers to bring quality education to area residents. They help individuals improve their lives each year with programs ranging from basic literacy to specialized technical training.

The Challenge

East Side House has been around for more than 125 years and is one of the oldest nonprofit organizations in New York City. Being such an established organization in the South Bronx, their goal was to further their brand recognition outside of their home region. The question was where to start, and how to leverage this in terms of growing and measuring that presence online.

What we did

In 2015, Whole Whale worked closely with the tech, fundraising, and communications teams of East Side House to build a stronger digital strategy to drive organizational impact.

Google Analytics & Impact Mapping

Whole Whale worked with the East Side House team to set up Google Analytics tracking on their website. We built customized dashboards for their team, thereby making their website data easily accessible and understandable. In order to better understand the value of web traffic, we configured specific tracking around newsletter, social shares, and online donation activity.

Google AdWords Grant

Whole Whale also successfully applied for the $10k Google AdWords grant on behalf of the East Side House. At exactly six months (the minimum amount of time to be eligible) we then brought East Side House up to the $40k AdWords GrantsPro level. Unlocking this level of AdWords with the help from Whole Whale brought 11x more traffic to East Side House’s website and helped to increase newsletter signups from 3 to 97 per month. Finally, Whole Whale worked with East Side House to execute its first digital fundraising campaign for Giving Tuesday. This resulted in a donation rate of 2% — 4x the industry standard of 0.5%.

Training & Capacity Building

Whole Whale created several custom trainings around Google AdWords, Google Analytics, and digital fundraising for the East Side House team. After the contract work was over, the East Side House team was able to manage their own ads and understand how traffic behavior led to impact.

Testimony

“The Whole Whale team was a delight to work with. As newbies to the nonprofit digital world, they were able to make this work digestible and fun! Whole Whale staff were available to advise on social media strategies, digital fundraising, and help us with the occasional glitch—all with great customer service and efficacy!”

– Laura Daley, Director of Communications, East Side House (March 2016)

Contact