National MS Society
A Streetlight Digital Case Study
The Challenge
Like many peer-to-peer fundraising programs, the National MS Society faced declining participation and fundraising in the years following the pandemic. The organization needed to rebuild awareness and engagement while attracting new participants, retaining existing supporters, and ultimately driving stronger fundraising performance. Paid media presented an opportunity to reach the right audiences more effectively and create a more intentional path from awareness to participation and fundraising.
The Strategy
Streetlight began by assessing the program’s current performance and establishing clear KPIs tied to the National MS Society’s participation and fundraising goals. From there, we developed targeted audience segments and a comprehensive annual paid media plan designed to support acquisition, retention, and fundraising throughout the season.
Our strategy also accounted for specific program needs, including a dedicated approach for the virtual Walk event. To better understand what was driving results, we implemented robust tracking and reporting that gave the team greater visibility into participant acquisition, fundraising performance, and the impact of paid media.
Testing Opportunity
Following Walk season, the National MS Society had an ambitious goal: generate an additional $500,000 in fundraising. We saw an opportunity to test how the call to action itself could influence supporter behavior.
For one month, audiences were evenly split based on last name. Supporters with last names beginning A–M received a “Donate” call to action, while those with last names beginning N–Z received a “Fundraise” call to action. This simple test gave us a clear way to compare how two different asks influenced both giving and fundraising behavior and determine which approach could generate greater impact.
Results
The test delivered a clear winner. The “Donate” CTA generated 4.5x more donations and nearly 4x the fundraising compared with the “Fundraise” CTA, despite a lower average gift. Most importantly, the campaign helped the National MS Society meet its $500,000 post-Walk fundraising goal.
The impact extended beyond the test itself:
56% more participants received 3+ donations during the test period compared with the previous year.
Paid media drove participant acquisition at an overall $25.48 cost per acquired participant.
The share of participants attributed to advertising increased from 8.13% in 2023 to 23.27% in 2024.
Nearly 80% of ad-attributed participants were new, demonstrating paid media’s role in expanding the participant base.
Ad-attributed participants generated 19.07% of all funds raised during the year.
Moving Forward
The results gave us clear direction for what came next. We continued refining the paid media strategy based on performance, adjusting campaign timelines and channel mix while identifying new opportunities for testing, including Performance Max. Just as importantly, the partnership continued to grow, with Streetlight expanding its support to Bike MS in 2025 and the National MS Society’s digital direct response program in 2026.
