Case Study
NumFOCUS:
#OpenCode4BetterScience
Campaign Strategy · Email Marketing · Content Direction · Analytics
Skills Used
Campaign Strategy · Email Marketing · HubSpot · Copywriting · Content Calendar Management Video Production Direction · Audience Segmentation · Analytics Reporting · Team Management Influencer/Stakeholder Outreach
The challenge
Nonprofit fundraising campaigns are driven by urgency — and that urgency is especially hard to manufacture for open-source scientific software. A lot of supporters for open source software still don’t know what all goes into creating, maintaining, and improving the systems that support ground-breaking scientific research. For NumFOCUS’ 2024 End-of-Year Giving Campaign, I needed to make abstract impact feel personal and immediate: take a sprawling ecosystem of 100+ open-source projects and distill it into a story compelling enough to drive donations during the most crowded fundraising window of the year.
My role
Campaign Lead
I owned the campaign strategy end-to-end: establishing the messaging framework and brand tone, building the content calendar, writing the majority of campaign emails, designing all eight emails in HubSpot, directing video interview production, developing the influencer outreach kit, and reporting on analytics throughout the campaign. I managed a team of two other marketers and collaborated with the development team on donation infrastructure.
The Goals
Goal #1:
Raise a minimum of $100,000 by December 31, 2024.
Goal #2:
Increase awareness and engagement around the real-world impact of open-source science
Strategy & Approach
The campaign's central message — #OpenCode4BetterScience — connected open-source software to tangible outcomes in healthcare, AI, sustainability, finance and more. Rather than asking donors to support "software," we asked them to support the scientists and researchers who depend on it.
I structured the campaign in three phases: a pre-launch teaser to build anticipation among existing subscribers, a four-week content push segmented by audience (past donors, PyData attendees, corporate prospects, and new supporters), and a final urgency sprint in the last seven days — historically when the majority of nonprofit year-end donations land.
Audience segmentation shaped everything. Past donors received personalized progress updates and social proof. Corporate sponsors got board-member-endorsed outreach. New audiences saw project storytelling first, donation ask second.
Execution
I wrote 5 of the 8 campaign emails and designed all 8 in HubSpot. Emails included a pre-launch teaser, weekly impact updates highlighting specific projects, a mid-campaign progress report, and a final urgency push. In total, our emails reached 227,575 inboxes with an average open rate of 12.4%.
Email Campaigns
Social Media
I set the strategic content plan and oversaw execution by our Marketing Coordinator — scheduling, feedback on drafts, and weekly analytics reporting. Each platform was treated differently based on where our audience lived:
LinkedIn: Weekly impact highlights and project testimonials — 15,530 impressions, 472 link clicks
YouTube: Revitalized for the campaign with project contributor interview videos — 6,554 impressions, 250 views
BlueSky: Launched the NumFOCUS account mid-campaign as a strategic move to follow community migration from X — 725 impressions in first use
X/Twitter: Final content push before strategic phase-out — 15,059 impressions
I scheduled and conducted interviews with key project contributors, which were edited into social media clips tying donor impact to real scientific outcomes. These served as the emotional core of the campaign's storytelling.
Video Production
Influencer & Stakeholder Outreach
I designed and distributed a media kit to NumFOCUS board members and advisory council, including pre-written copy and platform-optimized graphics. This enabled stakeholders to amplify the campaign across their own networks with consistent messaging.
I built a dynamic donor wall to recognize contributions in real time, creating social proof and community momentum. I prioritized UX throughout — seamless donation paths, strategic CTAs, and clear messaging at every scroll depth.
Website Landing Page
Blog Content
I co-wrote the campaign launch blog post with our Product Marketer, establishing the narrative voice and framing that carried through all other content.
Video Content
Email Content
Results
60,710
Amount Raised
x2
Prior Year Amount
30,000+
Social Media Reach
12.4%
Email Open Rate
While the original $100K goal wasn't reached, the campaign nearly doubled 2023 results — a significant outcome given it was the first year with a full strategic framework in place. The majority of donations came in the final seven days, validating the urgency-phase strategy. Social engagement for December matched the average engagement rate for the entire rest of the year combined.
What I'd do differently: Start corporate sponsor outreach 4–6 weeks earlier. Several high-potential leads came in too late to activate matching gift programs before year-end.