The Goal
Americares came to us in the summer of 2021 with the goal of scaling their email program and optimizing their paid media program. We got to work immediately to build a strategy that would allow them to share their impactful stories with as wide an audience as possible – particularly in emergency response moments, when Americares does its most urgent work to deliver critical aid.
THE STRATEGY
To develop a digital fundraising program optimized for sustainable, long-term growth, our team worked to build a connected digital strategy to help Americares power full-funnel growth, from acquiring new audience members to converting donors and sustainers to retaining audiences through compelling engagement campaigns. At the core of this messaging has always been the urgent stories of Americares response in critical emergency moments around the world.
Building for Efficient, Sustained Growth Across Channels
Over the years, our partnership with Americares grew from email and paid media to an integrated digital program, including a robust SMS program including both peer-to-peer and broadcast channels. Across digital channels, we aimed to meet supporters wherever they were and tell Americares story in surround-sound.
An Email List Transformed. When our partnership began just ahead of year-end in 2021, we quickly got to work identifying and solving existing deliverability challenges while leaning into modeled, fixed-cost acquisition. This strategic acquisition quadrupled Americares reach over email during year-end, which was instrumental to doubling email revenue year-over-year in the first year of partnership.
Since then, we’ve continued to make sustained, impactful investments in their list growth. Take a look at how we’ve scaled their email program:
In the years since this initial explosive audience growth, we’ve also leveraged email to cultivate their growing audiences and keep them engaged with Americares ongoing work. A “Ukraine Timeline” email we sent in February 2025, for example, offered a click-through journey for supporters to learn more about Americares response in Ukraine. While the goals of this message were educational, we saw it raise more than some of our fundraising appeals. By staying nimble and following the results, we re-sent this email two more times, more than doubling the total revenue it raised.
We’ve also leveraged our proprietary interactive platform for custom user journeys, Sign For Good, to create engagement experiences that educate supporters on Americares work around the world and deepen their connection to its mission.
A Paid Media Strategy Optimized for YOY Growth. We began our work optimizing Americares paid media strategy with an ambitious goal: spend less, raise more. We achieved this goal by executing a highly tailored bidding strategy between eight campaigns over paid search that allowed us to maximize budget – driving a 12% increase in 2025 Giving Tuesday & EOY revenue.
We’ve gone on to drive continued growth in paid media through competitive Giving Tuesday and year-end strategies over paid search, testing new audience targeting capabilities on Meta, and launching top-funnel brand awareness ads across digital ads channels. In 2026, our cross-channel multi-touch brand awareness ads drove a 45% lift in branded search engagement and drove 8M impressions, reaching 4M unique users and driving 353K complete views of their brand anthem video.
A Texting Program Built for Revenue and Retention. In 2024, we grew our digital partnership with Americares by helping them launch a peer-to-peer SMS program, to grow their audiences and reach supporters in urgent moments. In 2025, we helped them drive powerful results through emergency response moments like the California wildfires, converting nearly 6K new donors and over 100 new monthly donors in the newly scaled channel. In 2026, we launched a broadcast program to drive immediate revenue and bring in new donors, while we continued to scale their peer-to-peer program even in a year with fewer major emergency moments by adding evergreen content into the mix.
As we’ve helped Americares scale and optimize their SMS program, we’ve also leveraged the channel as a powerful reactivation tool: In 2025, we reactivated over 1,400 lapsed donors, with SMS serving as the second-strongest channel for reinstating more deeply lapsed donors. We’ve also seen SMS add significant value per donor: In 2026, 15% of donors who joined through SMS have already given a second gift, and SMS has retained 20% of donors acquired in high emergency moments at 18 months.
A Solid Foundation of Sustainers. One of the most powerful strategies for stable, ongoing growth is to build a solid file of recurring donors. We worked closely with the Americares team to grow and optimize their sustainer program. In 2025, we leveraged remaining budget ahead of the end of the fiscal year to test a sustainer push to an audience of prospective donors centered around urgent response in Gaza and found that a direct appeal for sustaining gifts drove a 100% increase in sustainer conversions over SMS. In 2026, we tested adding a “Donate Monthly” button to our emails to make opting into recurring giving even easier without deterring immediate gifts.
Maximizing Emergency Response Fundraising
As an emergency response organization, Americares is often one of the first organizations on the ground after an emergency; their response teams mobilize quickly to save countless lives. MissionWired works closely with Americares in these moments to communicate with donors and raise meaningful revenue to help power their response work.
Over the past few years, we’ve worked in close partnership with their team to ensure their digital program moves quickly and shares impactful on-the-ground stories. By developing rapid response toolkits, continuously having optimized campaigns in market, and working as an extension of their team, we’ve supported Americares in raising critical revenue to help deliver aid to those in need in key emergency situations, including most recently:
- Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton in 2025
- California Wildfires in 2025
- Hurricane Melissa in 2025
- Venezuela Earthquakes in 2026
- Flash Flooding in Nepal in 2026
Continuing Emergency Efforts: While many emergency response efforts transition from active crisis to recovery, some of the biggest conflicts of the past few years have been ongoing. As Americares continues to respond to urgent medical needs in Gaza and continuing barriers to health in Ukraine, we’ve worked closely with their team to ensure we are pivoting to these emergencies as they get coverage in the news and are making the ongoing need in these areas clear in our messaging. We’ve seen fundraising appeals centered around supporting these efforts continue to hold urgency and drive response with their audiences bringing in a significant portion of revenue in 2026.
The Results
From growing and optimizing their digital fundraising program across audiences and channels to helping drive critical revenue toward their efforts in recent major rapid response moments, we’ve helped Americares drive transformational growth for their digital program:
A Solid Foundation of Sustainers. One of the most powerful strategies for stable, ongoing growth is to build a solid file of recurring donors. We worked closely with the Americares team to grow and optimize their sustainer program. In 2025, we leveraged remaining budget ahead of the end of the fiscal year to test a sustainer push to an audience of prospective donors centered around urgent response in Gaza and found that a direct appeal for sustaining gifts drove a 100% increase in sustainer conversions over SMS. In 2026, we tested adding a “Donate Monthly” button to our emails to make opting into recurring giving even easier without deterring immediate gifts.
Maximizing Emergency Response Fundraising
As an emergency response organization, Americares is often one of the first organizations on the ground after an emergency; their response teams mobilize quickly to save countless lives. MissionWired works closely with Americares in these moments to communicate with donors and raise meaningful revenue to help power their response work.
Over the past few years, we’ve worked in close partnership with their team to ensure their digital program moves quickly and shares impactful on-the-ground stories. By developing rapid response toolkits, continuously having optimized campaigns in market, and working as an extension of their team, we’ve supported Americares in raising critical revenue to help deliver aid to those in need in key emergency situations, including most recently:
- Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton in 2025
- California Wildfires in 2025
- Hurricane Melissa in 2025
- Venezuela Earthquakes in 2026
- Flash Flooding in Nepal in 2026
Continuing Emergency Efforts: While many emergency response efforts transition from active crisis to recovery, some of the biggest conflicts of the past few years have been ongoing. As Americares continues to respond to urgent medical needs in Gaza and continuing barriers to health in Ukraine, we’ve worked closely with their team to ensure we are pivoting to these emergencies as they get coverage in the news and are making the ongoing need in these areas clear in our messaging. We’ve seen fundraising appeals centered around supporting these efforts continue to hold urgency and drive response with their audiences bringing in a significant portion of revenue in 2026.
It makes a powerful difference to have a fundraising partner that can scale up a rapid response campaign as quickly as our emergency response teams take action around the world – MissionWired is that partner for us. Over five years of partnership, their innovation and creativity has transformed our audience growth for the long term.
