Disabled American Veterans
A Streetlight Digital Case Study
The Challenge
Sometimes the next big fundraising idea isn’t something entirely new. It’s already there, waiting to be recognized.
DAV had one of those ideas in Field of Flags. Originally launched as a digital fundraising campaign in 2016, supporters could make a donation and have a flag planted at DAV’s national headquarters in honor of a veteran. The campaign quickly resonated with supporters, exceeding expectations and becoming a tentpole digital campaign.
DAV saw the potential for something bigger: taking an experience that had been successful digitally and putting it into the hands of supporters and communities across the country. The question was how to transform that organic momentum into a scalable peer-to-peer fundraising program with the internal alignment, strategy, and resources to support its growth.
Our Approach
Through a Streetlight Opportunity Assessment, we worked alongside DAV to take a closer look at what was already working and determine how Field of Flags could evolve.
Rather than starting with a predetermined solution, we assessed the program from multiple angles, gathering stakeholder perspectives, examining opportunities across the organization, and identifying what would be needed to transform the concept into a sustainable peer-to-peer experience.
Together, we helped DAV refine the vision, align internal stakeholders, build the business case, and develop a phased roadmap for bringing the program to scale.
The process reinforced something we believe strongly at Streetlight: your next great fundraising opportunity may already exist within your organization. Sometimes it takes stepping back, looking at your program holistically, and identifying where supporter behavior, organizational goals, and untapped potential intersect.
That’s exactly what an Opportunity Assessment is designed to do.
The Results
Field of Flags evolved from a digital campaign centered at DAV’s national headquarters into a community-driven peer-to-peer program with supporters planting fields of their own across all 50 states.
And supporters responded.
In just four years:
Registrations grew 473%
Net revenue increased more than 2,000%
Field of Flags expanded into a nationwide DIY fundraising experience, giving supporters a visible, personal way to honor veterans and rally their communities around DAV’s mission
What had once been a promising idea within DAV became a scalable fundraising program with a clear path for continued growth.
Moving Forward
For us, the Field of Flags story is a powerful reminder that innovation doesn’t always mean constantly creating a new program or initiative. Sometimes the opportunity is already there.
It may be a campaign that consistently outperforms expectations, a supporter behavior you keep noticing, or a program that has never been given the strategy and resources to reach its full potential. An opportunity assessment can help uncover those possibilities, align your organization around the strongest opportunities, and turn them into an actionable roadmap for growth.
