Resources
The Giver LetterFor Christian Creators
Services

Marketing for Christian ministries and nonprofits from strategy and brand to websites and email

We help you get more from the audience you already have. You work directly with a senior strategist from the first call through delivery.

What we do

Set the strategy before anything is built

We work with you to understand your audience, find where you lose them, and decide what to fix first.

More about the Giver Map
  • Audience and journey strategy
  • Website and digital experience strategy
  • Information architecture and audience pathways
  • Search and content strategy
  • Ongoing advisory for your marketing and web teams
  • The Giver Map

Clarify your message and your brand

We help you say who you are in the words your supporters already use.

  • Messaging and positioning
  • Brand refresh and rebrand
  • Campaign and launch creative
  • Copy for pages, emails and appeals
  • Voice and content guidelines

Design and build your website

We design and build websites that are personalized from the first day and that your team can maintain.

  • Website strategy and site architecture
  • Redesigns and full rebuilds
  • Campaign, launch, course and membership sites
  • Landing, donation, checkout and enrollment pages
  • Component library and team training

Personalize your email and website

We build the email and personalization that changes what each supporter sees, on your site and in their inbox.

  • Welcome, first-gift and monthly partner sequences
  • Win-back and re-engagement
  • Newsletters and pages that change by reader
  • Offer, resource and content matching
  • Automation on Kit, HubSpot and your existing platform
  • RightMessage setup and management

Research your audience and report the results

We research your supporters in their own words and report what the work produced.

  • Voice of audience surveys, on site and in email
  • Written-response analysis
  • Voice of audience dashboard and quarterly readout
  • Baselines, A/B testing and controls
  • CRM and email integrations
  • Quarterly reporting
The method

We find out who your audience is before we build anything.

Every website and email we build starts with the same research: who your people are, what they came for, and how they say it. Then we build for those people.

We call it the G.I.V.E.R. method: Gather, Identify, Voice, Engage and Retain. It runs on every project, whether we are rebuilding your website, your email or both.

How the method works
How the system runs

Once the strategy is set, the work runs as one system across your website and email.

Here is what's inside each part.

Build the audience

Most of the people who visit never join, because nothing on the page is for them. We design and build the site, and the survey inside it that finds out who each visitor is while they are still paying attention.

  • Websites designed and built out of audience research rather than a template
  • Information architecture, content structure and site strategy
  • Brand, messaging and design when the brand is what's holding you back
  • Redesigns on the site you have, full rebuilds, and sites for a campaign, launch, course or membership
  • Voice-of-supporter surveys built into your site and your email
  • Written-answer analysis, with every response read and coded by theme
  • A voice-of-audience dashboard your team can open any time
  • Capture surveys that turn anonymous traffic into known subscribers
  • The stage map: reader, subscriber, first-time donor, monthly partner, lapsed
  • Built inside your CRM and email platform, so the data stays yours

We spent fifteen years doing this for businesses and creators whose websites had to pay for themselves. Every site we build is set up to be personalized from day one, on a component library your team can run.

Turn readers into givers

A new subscriber gets the same welcome as everyone else, and most of them go quiet long before they ever give. We write and build the emails that follow, and change what they say based on what the person told you. The same work runs for a first purchase of your books, courses and events, and we report the two separately.

  • Welcome-to-first-gift email sequences
  • Newsletters that change per reader, with an ask that changes too
  • Headlines, offers and calls to action that change by visitor
  • Resources matched to each visitor instead of a library they have to search
  • Ad-to-landing-page matching, so the page reflects the ad someone clicked
  • Donation, checkout and enrollment pages
  • The copy for every ask, written or sharpened

Your newsletter’s editorial voice stays yours.

“I had 6,500 subscribers and was just blasting random broadcasts. Brad came in, gave me a clear weekly email system, and made sure every email delivers an offer.”
Newsletter client

Grow monthly giving

Monthly partners are the difference between a good year and a stable one. We build the monthly partner page, the email series behind it, and the on-site prompts that ask the supporters who are ready, instead of asking your whole list on the same day.

  • One-time-to-monthly sequences
  • The monthly partner page and the series behind it
  • Knowing who is ready to be asked, and who should be thanked instead
  • Dynamic offer blocks on the site and in email
  • Seasonal and year-end asks that surface by time of year
  • For the books, courses and events you sell, the right offer to the right supporter
“Before [working with Brad], my emails & attempts at sales sequences were chaotic at best. … Now that [the project] is completed, I can see exactly how my customer journey is curated from entry to purchase.”
Founder of an online health education business

Keep them from lapsing

A supporter who gave once and then heard nothing is the easiest one to lose and the cheapest one to win back. We build the follow-up after a gift, the re-engagement for the people going quiet, and the win-back for the ones who already stopped.

  • Follow-up after a gift or a purchase
  • First-to-second gift sequences
  • Stewardship automations that catch supporters before they go cold
  • Reactivation campaigns for a list that has gone quiet
  • Renewal and re-engagement for memberships and subscriptions

Show what it returned

None of it is worth much if you cannot see what moved. We set a baseline before we build, then measure every change against your own goals and report on it every quarter.

  • The baseline, the handful of numbers we track, and a regular read on them
  • A/B tests with a held-back control, so you know what actually moved
  • CRM and email data syncing, and every integration between them
  • RightMessage setup and management
  • Your email platform automations, whether you run Kit, HubSpot or something else
  • Reporting your whole team can read
  • A written readout every quarter, as new survey answers come in: what to publish, what to offer, what to ask for and how to say it

We run the stack and we report on it. Your team never has to touch the tools, and never has to wonder what the work returned.

The work

What it did for two Christian organizations

Working together

How to work with us

  1. Step 1 · Free · 45 minutes

    The intro call

    You tell us about your organization, your goals and what you need. We work out together where we could help and whether we are a fit. Then you get a proposal with three options, from the Map on its own to the whole system, and the Map is in every one of them.

  2. Step 2 · In every option

    The Giver Map

    Before anything is designed or written, we put the strategy together. We map how people move through your website and email, find where they drop off, and work out which fixes are most likely to lift subscriptions, giving, sales, membership and retention. You get a prioritized plan whether or not you hire us to build it. It includes:

    • Your audience and journey map
    • Where each subscriber, donor, customer or member stands
    • Segmentation and personalization opportunities
    • Opportunity estimates on your own numbers
    • A prioritized plan
    More about the Map
  3. Step 3 · Built on what the Map found

    We build it and help you run it

    Whichever option you chose, we build it on what the Map found and measure it against your own baseline. After that you can keep working with us monthly. We run the surveys, test and improve the site and emails, and send you a report every quarter. If the Map is all you chose, the plan is yours to run, and you can bring us in to build any part of it later.

Three ways we shape the work

Which one fits is worked out with you on the intro call, from what you need and what your team can carry. Every one of them starts with the Map.

An ongoing partnership

Who it's for
Organizations that want a specialized team running the whole audience experience alongside their own.
What you get
Strategy, build, surveys, tests, automations and reporting, quarter after quarter.

Strategy and advisory

Who it's for
Organizations with a capable team that need direction and a strategist at the table.
What you get
We set the strategy, own the personalization layer, and work through the build with your team so the capability stays with them.

A defined project

Who it's for
Organizations that need one thing done properly, like a website, a rebrand or a campaign site.
What you get
We research your audience, build it, document it and train your team. You can run it yourselves after that, or keep us on to look after it.

What we guarantee

The Build Guarantee

Your system ships fully built, documented, and your team trained, or you don't pay the final setup installment.

The First-Win Guarantee

Your first personalization goes live fast, or your next month is on us. We don't promise a specific result, because your supporters' choices are their own. We guarantee the work.

Results

What we measure

We set a baseline before we build, then measure each change against your own goals. Giving and sales are reported separately, and so is engagement.

Ministries and apostolates

  • Participation
  • Giving
  • Monthly support
  • Content engagement

Nonprofits and charities

  • First-time donors
  • Second-gift rate
  • Monthly giving
  • Donor retention

Publishers and authors

  • Email subscribers
  • Book buyers
  • Repeat purchases
  • Revenue per subscriber

Courses and memberships

  • Enrollment
  • Renewals
  • Recurring revenue
  • Completion

Mission-driven businesses

  • Qualified leads
  • New customers
  • Repeat purchases
  • Customer lifetime value
Fit

Who this is for and who it is not.

A good fit if

  • You are a Christian ministry, nonprofit, publisher or creator, supported mostly by your own audience.
  • You already have an audience: a website with real traffic, an email list, or both.
  • Your team is at capacity and you want a partner who does the work, not another tool to run.
  • You want more giving, sales or sign-ups without pushing your audience harder.
  • You want an agency that runs and improves the system with you after launch.
  • Your website and email treat everyone the same today.
  • Someone on your team can give us content, approvals and access.

Probably not a fit if

  • You are a local church or parish. We work with the organizations that serve them, not with congregations directly.
  • Your funding is mostly grants and institutional money.
  • You are starting from no website and no list. Build the audience first, then this is worth doing.
  • You want a paid-media or direct-mail agency.
  • You want a deliverable handed over with no measurement of whether it worked.
  • You cannot give us access to the data or to the people who decide.
FAQ

Questions we get asked

Yes. A funnel pushes everyone toward the same action. This makes sure each person hears what fits them: a first-time visitor and a ten-year partner get different asks, and a reader who already bought the book is not pitched it again.

Start with your own numbers.

A few questions about your traffic, your list and your giving. You will get an estimate of what personalizing them could add, and where to start. It takes about a minute and needs no email.

See what’s still on the table