Birthline of San Diego had run Giving Tuesday before. They knew the playbook. Send some emails. Post on Instagram. Hope the community shows up.

In 2024, it worked well enough — over $20,000 raised, mostly from the same familiar faces who showed up every year. Solid. Safe. And honestly, a little stuck.

The concern going into the 2025 campaign wasn’t whether they’d raise money. It was whether Giving Tuesday would ever feel like more than a one-day push to a loyal but finite base.

 

About Birthline of San Diego

Birthline of San Diego has been serving families in the region for 45 years, providing free support from pregnancy through a child’s early years. In practice, that means a lot more than diapers.

In 2025 alone, the organization served 654 families through more than 1,861 client visits, distributed over 265,000 essential items including clothing, postpartum supplies, and feminine hygiene products, and issued 1,122 medical referrals connecting mothers and children to prenatal care, pediatricians, and specialty services. They also facilitated nearly 2,000 referrals for nutrition programs like WIC and CalFresh/EBT, helping families access stable food support beyond their doors.

Eighty-one cents of every dollar Birthline raises supports families directly. With revenue of $587,000 against $634,000 in expenses, there is no margin for a campaign that doesn’t perform. Every dollar raised on Giving Tuesday has a direct line to a family who needs it.

 

What Wasn’t Working

In 2024, Birthline’s Giving Tuesday campaign raised $20,726 total — but $10,000 of that came from a donation match. Actual donor giving: $10,726, at an average donation of $228. The same core supporters were showing up year after year. New donors were hard to come by, and the ones who did give rarely came back.

The Birthline team knew they could do more. They weren’t sure how to get there.

 

What Changed

For 2025, the approach expanded in two directions at once: go deeper with existing supporters and go wider with audiences who had never heard of Birthline.

The campaign ran for four weeks — not one day — with incentives designed specifically to bring in new donors: a $5,000 match for the first $5,000 raised, an AirPods raffle for new donors, and a bag of coffee for anyone who signed up as a monthly giver.

Nadi Marketing handled the digital infrastructure and visibility work:

The Birthline team handled email outreach and static social posts, with segmented messaging for existing donors and those who had never given. The division of labor was intentional: play to each team’s strengths, and run a cohesive campaign rather than a scattered one.

The Results

When the campaign closed, Birthline had raised $21,510 — but the number that matters most isn’t the total. It’s what came directly from donors.

Donor-generated giving reached $16,510 — a 54% increase over the prior year — and this time there was only $5,000 in match funding available, down from $10,000 the year before. The campaign raised more from real donors with half the safety net.

The average donation climbed from $228 to $318.

The reach numbers told a parallel story. Instagram views hit 19,000 for November, up 28% from October, with 50% of views coming from non-followers. A single boosted post reached 25,000 accounts for $56. The KSDY50 segments accumulated nearly 3,000 YouTube views. The campaign landing page drove 318 clicks from nearly 1,200 pop-up views.

 

What This Means Going Forward

This wasn’t a one-time lift. The infrastructure built for this campaign — the segmented email approach, the milestone reels, the landing page, the media relationships — doesn’t disappear when Giving Tuesday ends.

The new and lapsed donors who gave this year are now in the system. The media relationship with KSDY50 exists. The Instagram audience that found Birthline in November is still there.

The 2025 campaign didn’t just raise more money. It built something to build from.

 

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