The Challenge
Like most nonprofits, Sunday Breakfast Mission had a sizable donor file with incomplete contact data, specifically thousands of records without email addresses. This limited their ability to communicate consistently with donors across different media channels and leverage digital media targeting tied to known donors.
The Strategy
At the end of 2024, we ran an email append focused exclusively on donors who did not already have an email address on file.
The objective was not list growth but engagement:
- Communicate with the donors through email
- Target digital media to more donors
- Increase overall revenue and retention
The Investment
Across their data, Sunday Breakfast Mission had over 25k contact records in their CRM without an associated email address. Of those, we were able to match almost 18k emails back—that’s a 70% append rate! The total cost was $3,230.
What Happened Next (This Is the Part That Matters)
Of the 17,944 matched emails, only 135 donors opted in to receive email communication. That number may sound small, but those 135 donors told a very different story once introduced to the mission in this new way.
In 2024, only 78 of those names were actively giving. In 2025, almost every one of them was— gift activation jumped to over 93% among opted-in donors.
Total gifts from these 126 donors jumped from 188 in 2024 to 314, a 67% increase in total transactions.
And revenue increased 83%! The over $10,000 in incremental revenue from this small, re-engaged segment more than covered the entire cost of the email append in the first year alone.
The Takeaway
Email appends are not about blasting inboxes or chasing cheap growth.
When done responsibly and paired with proper hygiene:
- They reactivate overlooked donors
- They unlock digital identity for smarter targeting
- They can help grow and engage high-value donors
This was not list growth; this was finding new ways to communicate and engage with donors. And it cost less than $3,500.
