From ad hoc to always-on fundraising with MSI Reproductive Choices

MSI Reproductive Choices is a global organisation working to support reproductive rights and choice around the world. Alongside service delivery and advocacy work, their global communications team plays a vital role in sustaining that mission.

We began working with MSI in 2024, initially supporting Google Ads. That relationship quickly grew into a broader partnership focused on developing digital fundraising across channels.

MSI was operating in a rapidly shifting environment, with significant reductions in global health funding, changing search behaviour, and an increasingly polarised political context shaping how the organisation needed to reach and engage supporters.

Major news moments often created valuable fundraising opportunities and generated strong spikes in engagement. The opportunity was to complement this activity with a more consistent approach that could continue building awareness, engagement and support between those moments.

Alongside this, there was an opportunity to connect activities across channels and create stronger pathways from awareness through to donation.

MSI already had an active fundraising programme spanning paid media, search and supporter engagement. We worked together to build on that foundation, including:

• running continuous awareness activity to introduce new audiences to MSI’s work
• building lead generation campaigns for people not yet ready to donate
• strengthening donation activity by focusing on warmer, more engaged audiences
• testing creative, audiences and giving asks
• connecting paid activity with SEO and onsite journeys

MSI’s messaging spans both urgent, politically driven moments and longer-term impact, and we wanted to understand how different approaches performed across the funnel.

This involved testing:

• awareness content focused on MSI’s work and global impact
• fundraising creative responding to current events and moments of urgency
• one-off donations alongside regular giving

Rather than testing small variations, we focused on clearly distinct creative routes, using assets developed by MSI's in-house team. This made it easier to understand what was driving performance. We discovered creative that tapped into urgency was more effective at driving one-off donations. And more impact-led approaches were better at encouraging regular giving, helping to build longer-term value.

Alongside broad audience fundraising, MSI also wanted to explore how digital could support higher-value donor engagement. Rather than leading with a donation ask, we focused on building awareness and interest first, particularly among audiences who hadn't previously engaged with MSI.

We tested targeted activity, including LinkedIn campaigns aimed at high-net-worth individuals, supported by lead generation and follow-up email journeys. Early results generated valuable insight into how these audiences engage, helping identify opportunities for more tailored content and follow-up journeys.

Across paid social, audience quality remains a key area of focus. While some awareness campaigns generate high levels of engagement, engagement alone isn't always the best indicator of fundraising potential. As abortion can be a politically sensitive issue, campaigns can attract engagement from people who are opposed to MSI's work, and platforms treat this in the same way as positive engagement. Working closely with MSI, we continue to refine audience targeting and creative approaches based on campaign performance and audience sentiment, helping ensure our activity reaches people most likely to support the organisation.

We also worked closely with our SEO team to ensure activity across channels was aligned.

This included developing and updating content in response to emerging news and policy changes, ensuring MSI stayed visible as conversations evolved. Alongside this, we looked for early search trends and shifts in demand, so paid and organic activity could respond to emerging topics more quickly.

At the same time, we collaborated with MSI on tailoring evergreen content across MSI’s core areas of work for SEO and GEO. Recently, this has included optimising key pages to capture intent-led searches such as “charities in [location]” and “donate to [location]”, supporting more consistent, high-quality traffic and donation opportunities throughout the year.

We also saw a clear relationship between always-on activity and search demand, where spikes in awareness activity often translated into increased organic visibility, particularly when supported by aligned content strategies and technical SEO improvements.

Where people moved between ads, search and onsite content, we focused on making sure they could find clear, relevant information to take the next step. Lead generation provided an important alternative route for people not yet ready to donate, helping MSI stay connected to interested audiences.

For higher-value audiences, we introduced a more tailored SEO approach designed to improve visibility for people carrying out more in-depth research before making significant donations. While search volumes in this space are lower, intent is significantly higher, so the focus was on strengthening MSI’s visibility and credibility for donors conducting deeper research before making significant contributions. This included reinforcing E-E-A-T signals, improving reputation-led content and ensuring MSI was positioned as a trusted, authoritative organisation in this space.

When combined with MSI’s strong creative and messaging, this approach helped increase digital fundraising performance while building a strong foundation for future activity.

• 20% reduction in cost per lead
• 56% reduction in donor acquisition costs
• 94% increase in year-one ROAS
• 58% increase in organic search revenue

Alongside this, always-on activity helped build a substantial pool of engaged users, creating more opportunities for future fundraising and donor development.