From $400K to $1M+ raised: Sandra Schmirler Foundation’s telethon success

For the Sandra Schmirler Foundation (SSF), its annual telethon continues to be the nonprofit’s biggest and most successful fundraiser. But managing such a high-volume event takes a lot of coordination to pull off. So when an opportunity to improve its fundraising process came, SSF took it.

About The Sandra Schmirler Foundation

Established in memory of beloved Olympic Gold medalist Sandra Schmirler, her namesake foundation provides life-saving equipment to critically ill babies across Canada. Since 2001, the Sandra Schmirler Foundation has granted over $8 million for more than 100 hospitals, giving thousands of babies a chance to be champions like Sandra.

The challenge

Old-school ways stall donations

SSF’s long-standing telethon is a much-anticipated event by supporters and curling fans alike. And while the event was a yearly success, Darren McEwen, Executive Director of the Sandra Schmirler Foundation and his team, realized that the huge manual effort to process donations actually held the telethon back from its true potential.

“When donors called in, volunteers would handwrite their information. Then, that information had to be verified and added to our platform before finally processing the payment.” said Darren.

Recognizing that tried and true old-school methods of fundraising were slowing it down, SSF needed to adapt and grow.

The solution

Optimize events for online donations

On a quest to lighten the telethon’s manual burden and elevate its online donorship strategy, the SSF sought a donation platform with high-volume event experience. Fundraise Up met the team’s requirements and more.

One especially key feature from Fundraise Up is the Virtual Terminal — a tool to easily process donations over-the-phone and in-person. Says Darren, “The Virtual Terminal is a game-changer. It takes away all the friction for our volunteers. It auto-populates information and makes the entire fundraising process easier and safer for all.

Fundraise Up is built for high-volume events, seamlessly processing up to 200 transactions per second in real time.

The results

More than $1M raised in a day

With Fundraise Up implemented, SSF launched its telethon with an ambitious goal to raise more than ever before. And the partnership came at just the right time. Following Fundraise Up’s recommendation to add Campaign Pages before the event, SSF was ready for any emergency.

So when a huge influx of traffic briefly crashed its website, SSF simply redirected visitors to its Campaign Page and the donations kept flowing. By the event’s end, nearly 8,000 donations had been processed smoothly to culminate in an astounding $1M+ fundraising feat.

And the success doesn’t stop there. With Fundraise Up’s AI, one-time donors are intelligently prompted to upgrade to recurring support. As a result, SSF’s monthly recurring donor base, Champions Circle, grew 300% and generates $150K per year — a 96% increase in monthly donation revenue.

The organization is also seeing success with Fundraise Up’s Adaptive Cost Coverage, an AI tool that asks donors to cover transaction fees. Now SSF has more money to support the organization’s mission rather than cover operating costs.

Perhaps most telling is the significant change in manual labor for the Sandra Schmirler Foundation. Where just years ago, 81% of donations had to follow that tedious process of manually adding donor info to SSF’s system, now 95% of donations from the telethon come through Fundraise Up’s Virtual Terminal, donation form or email.

Notable numbers