Fundraising with Compassion: A Case Study of Foreknown Ministries’ Wave of Light Event

When your pregnancy and infant loss nonprofit organization is powered by just two staff members and a whole lot of heart, every decision needs to balance compassion with logistics.

For Foreknown Ministries, honoring families who’ve experienced the unimaginable means creating soft, sacred spaces where grief, remembrance, and hope all coexist. Their signature event, Wave of Light, does exactly that. It’s part memorial, part fundraiser, and fully community-centered.

But coordinating an emotionally delicate gathering for hundreds (complete with 50,000 symbolic lights and deeply personalized moments) is no small feat. The stakes are high, and any tech hiccups—especially around check-in or memorial items—can feel like, as co-founder Kelsi Cole put it, “a loss on top of a loss.”

Enter 4aGoodCause.

With a customizable platform and donor experience that feels just as supportive as your organization itself, Foreknown Ministries found the perfect partner to help them grow their impact—without compromising care.

In this story, you’ll hear directly from founders Kelsi Cole and Alyson Brown on how Foreknown Ministries built an event that not only fundraises to power their mission, but also gives grieving families space to feel seen, honored, and held—and how 4aGoodCause helped make that experience seamless, scalable, and soulfully done.

At a glance: Wins with 4aGoodCause

• 🗓️ Wave of Light Events: 3
• 👥 Peer-to-Peer Fundraisers: 25
• 💰 Total Raised: $117,998

The mission

Founded on October 15, 2018, on Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, Foreknown Ministries provides hope-filled resources, compassionate community, and practical support for parents navigating the devastating loss of a pregnancy or infant.

Developed out of their own personal loss, as Kelsi and Alyson each lost a child just weeks apart, Foreknown now offers retreats, coaching, and courses that meet grieving parents in their deepest pain. As Alyson explained, “We were really leaning on each other so much more after walking through such a tragic loss.”

Today, their work touches families across the country and is anchored by a belief that while grief is personal, it’s not something we should go through alone. In their words, “It’s a tragic honor to be able to do what we do.”

🏆Success story: Grief care is essential. See how Circle of Life Hospice surpassed $1M+ in online donations by streamlining fundraising across multiple channels using 4aGoodCause.

The challenge

While Foreknown’s events and resources grew in reach and impact, their previous fundraising platforms just couldn’t keep up, especially for their largest annual event Wave of Light. Their existing event ticketing, peer-to-peer fundraising, and donor communications felt clunky and disjointed.

Alyson put it plainly: “We had done [the event ticketing] one year with 4aGoodCause, switched over to DonorBox, and then went back to 4aGoodCause. And it’s just been so smooth and intuitive… especially just the two of us wearing all of the hats.”

The stakes were high: This wasn’t just a gala or a fun run. The Wave of Light is an event where families come together to honor their grief and loss within community.

“We need to be able to provide such a customizable experience for each person that comes to our event and that is simply not even doable with DonorBox,” explained Kelsi.

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The solution

Reuniting with 4aGoodCause, Foreknown Ministries was able to:

• Seamlessly manage event ticketing, donations, and peer-to-peer campaigns from one platform
• Create fully customizable pages, forms, and donor/attendee experiences that honored specific needs
• Leverage responsive customer support for quick solutions and strategic insights

“I don’t believe any platform could really honestly come close,” Kelsi explains. “This really feels like a company that we can trust that is actually going to do and provide what they say they’re going to do.”

“Ronald has put so much dedication…that man responds to us within hours, which is insane and kind of unheard of,” said Kelsi. “He makes you feel like you’re his number one and only,” Alyson adds.

🤯Did you know? 4aGoodCause makes setting up custom fundraising pages and campaigns a breeze — and makes monthly recurring giving easier than ever — for you and your donors. Learn more.

The results

With 4aGoodCause, Foreknown Ministries delivered a high-touch, grief-informed experience at their Wave of Light remembrance and fundraising event—all with a simplified process:

• Hosted Colorado’s only in-person, statewide Wave of Light, lighting 50,000 symbolic pink, blue, and white lights
• Enabled personalized check-ins, merchandise distribution, and memorial experiences with minimal hiccups
• Grew peer-to-peer reach through their Forever Known Fundraiser, empowering bereaved parents to fundraise in honor of their children
• Transitioned all giving (including everyday donations) into one unified platform, freeing up time to focus on donor development and recurring gifts

“The simplicity of just having all of the information in one location… is so beneficial because it’s less to remember. It’s for us AND our donors.”

With their tech problem solved, the founder-team is grateful to have more time to focus on finding more donors.

“With customizations for the messaging and the communication that we can now give to our current donors [with 4aGoodCause], not only are we going to see higher donor retention rates, but we’re also going to see a better relationship with our donors.”

🏆 Success story: Learn how one animal welfare organization grew to 400+ recurring donors, achieving ~10–15% year-over-year growth—all powered by the 4aGoodCause fundraising platform.

Why it worked

• Customization for important moments: “[Other platforms,] whether that’s DonorBox, Classy, etc., that say they offer event support, well, there is not a lot of support. The year that we used DonorBox, I feel like we developed their event platform for them with all of the emails that we sent to them almost daily; we would run into hiccup after hiccup.”
• A unified platform: “Ticketing an event, taking donations, selling items… it’s all so smooth and intuitive.”
• Hands-on support: “The amount of help that [Ronald] has offered us… again, no one else does that.”
• Mission-driven fundraising: “With 4aGoodCause resources, like How to Convert Year-End Donors to Monthly Givers, we’re given a very solid model of fundraising and what it looks like.”

⭐️ What if there’s an easier way to maximize donations? There is. It’s called recurring monthly giving, and it generates 2.4X more revenue on average than one-time gifts. And our Monthly Giving Toolkit simplifies the whole program.

3 top tips for newer nonprofit organizations from Alyson and Kelsi

1. Nonprofit work is hard work. Great relationships lighten the load.

Having solid partnerships not just with donors but also key influencers—whether that’s local churches, counselors, hospitals.

“We’re so grateful for for the hospital partnerships alone that we have throughout Colorado, Kansas, Utah, I mean, just the whole area that have our resources because they’re able to say there are parents out there who have been right where you are that have, you know, who know exactly what you’re going through,” explains Kelsi.

Partnerships like these are truly key for building not just relationships, but also for spreading the word about your mission.

2. Shoulder each other up.

Alyson and Kelsi truly believe that they can do so much more by working together with other organizations for this important cause.

When they find a solution, like 4aGoodCause, they share freely to help set up others for a better foundation moving forward.

“We just truly believe that we can do so much more together for this cause than we can ever do apart… including sharing things like ‘I actually found a great giving platform that’s super affordable, but yet best customer service ever,’” shares Kelsi.

3. Asking for money is hard. It’s just a fact.

According to Alyson and Kelsi, the challenge is to switch your mindset. There are certain people that are called to support your organization and you are giving them an invitation to do that.

“I know that personally that was something that I struggled with at the beginning, but what a gift it is to tell your story to people,” shares Alyson, “And then to just give them that invitation to go on that journey with you. It’s been really sweet and such a blessing to be on the receiving end of those conversations, when people are like, ‘I would love to. Here I am.’”

⭐️Let your impact stories do the heavy lifting. Learn our process of how to gather impact stories for nonprofit storytelling (with templates). Then pair your stories with a monthly giving program that (almost) runs itself. Discover how to start a monthly giving program or grow your existing recurring giving program with 4aGoodCause. See it for yourself.

What’s next for Foreknown Ministries founders

With all systems now unified, Foreknown Ministries is laser-focused on donor development and strategic growth.

“[The 4aGoodCause resources] get our gears or wheels spinning, dreaming about what we could do differently: What could we add to what we’re doing now and how will that change in 2026?”

They’re diving into new tools and strategies (shout-out to those 4aGC newsletters) and working to grow their “Foreknown Foundations” monthly giving team.

“I think what is, dare I say, exciting (I’ve never used exciting and fundraising in the same sentence before), is just the wealth of knowledge and resources that are given to us from 4aGoodCause,” Alyson explains, “It’s one of the newsletters that we look forward to reading instead of just deleting from our inbox.”

Want to launch streamlined, unified fundraising campaigns like Foreknown Ministries?

With 4aGoodCause by their side, Foreknown Ministries is mapping out new strategies to grow their donor base over time. And we’re cheering them on every step of the way.

You can grow donor retention with 4aGoodCause’s built-in monthly giving toolkit and event ticketing features—complete with upgrade prompts, automated thank-yous, and donor management tools that actually save time.

Schedule a demo of 4aGoodCause and we’ll show you how.

🌱Grief care is community care: Learn how Northwest Arkansas Circle of Life raised over $1M+ online (case study) and supported multiple fundraising channels with 4aGoodCause.