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Canada’s history is inseparable from the deep harm inflicted on its Indigenous peoples, including through the residential school system that assimilated Indigenous children through forced family separation. On the eve of its 10th anniversary in 2012, Reconciliation Canada aimed for an ambitious 2021 Giving Tuesday and end-of-year fundraising campaign that would highlight a decade’s worth of work and raise the resources to implement the next phase of its strategy. 

DBT partnered with Reconciliation Canada to help re-warm and activate a cold email list, preparing it steadily for the asks of Giving Tuesday and the end of year campaign by prioritizing storytelling and reiteration of cultural values (including the organization’s core credo of Namwayut, “we are all one” in the Kwak’wala language, and its chosen symbol of the canoe paddle, representing shared endeavors). 

In a major gamble, DBT deliberately crafted fundraising emails to be longer and to delay fundraising asks in favor of substantial content that required time to read and digest. Our collaboration was continuously informed not only by Reconciliation Canada’s financial needs but by empathy for the supporters who needed to be reminded of and re-engaged with the mission.

Incorporating custom website and social graphics (including multi-post design for the Instagram grid), organic video produced by RC staff and friends, and an email cadence built around warming and informing the audience in advance of key events, DBT ran one of its most unique and culturally sensitive fundraising campaigns to date, helping raise over $20,000 over the course of five weeks off an email list of about 10,000 supporters who had been minimally engaged for the majority of the preceding year, and validating our theory that committing to narrative and storytelling can propel fundraising as effectively as other methods.