How Culver-Stockton College Raised $187K via One Campaign with 4aGoodCause

When you’re a small college with a mighty mission, every dollar counts — and every donor’s experience should feel as easy and joyful as a campus reunion.

Enter Culver-Stockton College’s most seamless Giving Day yet.

At a glance

Here’s the quick-hit highlight reel, but see the full story below for all the good stuff.

• 💰 Total Raised: $187,515 — initial goal was $125,000
• 👥 Number of Donor Participants: 221 in total, with an average donation of $778.05
• 📈 Giving Day Goal Exceeded by 50%
• 🚀 Conversion Rate: 66% (M+R industry average = 12%), with the team doing a ton of prep work to earn that conversion rate

We chatted with Susie Biggerstaff, a proud Culver-Stockton grad and Director of Advancement Services and Stewardship, to hear what made this campaign successful — their first big campaign using 4aGoodCause.

Spoiler: It wasn’t just the new tech (though 4aGC definitely took the pressure off the team and simplified the behind the scenes!). The team has a personal way of priming donors for this annual campaign, which you’ll learn about below.

You can listen to a portion of Susie’s interview here with Amanda Johnson of the 4aGC team, or read through the case study below:

How Culver-Stockton elevated their Giving Day tradition with a smarter, simpler approach

The Mission

Culver-Stockton College, nestled in Canton, Missouri, is a liberal arts college that was founded in 1853. The school is home to a vibrant mix of students who thrive in its close-knit, forward-thinking environment.

At Culver-Stockton, professors know your name, campus feels like family, and every student matters.

Their mission? Make that educational experience possible for as many students as they can.

Their annual Giving Day campaign, which is held every year on one of the founders’ birthdays, supports needs across the college.

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The Challenge

Like many nonprofit teams, Culver-Stockton had been piecing together their Giving Day with homegrown donation form flow and tools — and a lot of manual effort.

The Giving Day is a beloved tradition, but the tools powering it? Not so beloved.

Donation forms lacked ease and required a lot of manual back-end work. It was hard for donors to navigate and didn’t offer a great opportunity for staff to scale.

It worked—but it didn’t come without hassle. The team needed a solution that powered the Giving Day without adding to their workload.

The Solution

Susie shared that once they made the 4aGC page live, “From that moment, I knew it would be so much better. Everything was already flowing into it so easily.”

Enter 4aGoodCause. Culver-Stockton made the switch about two months before their big day.

Using 4aGC, they launched a sleek fundraiser landing page (thanks to 4aGC’s starter template) and utilized features like:

• A donor wall for real-time giving inspiration
• Instant gift officer notifications after campaign calls
• Default recurring gift options so donors could choose monthly recurring payments
• A streamlined backend so any team member could get updates in real time

Susie reported that when they first launched this campaign, before using 4aGC, it was challenging for their team to get the site ready and it took about three months.

But with 4aGC, they set up the campaign page the first week they partnered with 4aGC. And Susie explained “It was easy to adjust [the page]… Having that sample page made our life so much easier… we could have been going within 24 hours.”

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“There is just better transparency for [our donors], so that they know and can trust that they’re gift is going where they want it to,” Susie shared.

One thing that the team loved? 4aGC’s automatic donation acknowledgements.

“The automatic acknowledgement is wonderful. We’d had that in the past, but I don’t feel like it worked as well as it did this time around.”

The Results

Here’s a quick snapshot of the campaign results. The numbers speak for themselves:

• $187,510 raised from 241 donations (donor matches were also involved!).
• 66% conversion rate on the donation page (industry average is 12%).
• 0 donor complaints. Seriously—Susie said there wasn’t a single tech support call from donors.
• A morale boost when they hit their first match goal earlier than expected.

Even better? They did it all without burning out the team.

Susie Biggerstaff called the experience “so smooth”—and she’s been the lead on this annual campaign since day 1.

While their donation page conversion rate is way above industry average, it’s important to note the reason the donation pages were so well-converting:

Their team did the heavy lifting by investing in personal connections ahead of and on the Giving Day.

Susie explained “Knowing that conversion rate solidifies that personal relationships and making those calls — and messaging potential donors through email or text — really is impactful… that’s why our conversion rate was so high…. To me, it does solidify that those personal relationships, at least for our organization, are what is going to drive our success.”

📚Read more: 10 Places to Put a Link to your Online Donation Page

Top fundraising tips from the Culver-Stockton Giving Day Campaign

A key component of this year’s Giving Day was the donor match, along with the seamless payment process and instant gift acknowledgements with receipts for donors.

“You need to make [the process] easy for your donor — and the added transparency when they get their gift acknowledgement right away is important,” Susie explained.

Here are the other top takeaways from the Culver-Stockton Giving Day campaign:

• 🔄 Conversion Power – Personal outreach, topped off with simple, reliable donations forms, led to excellent donor conversion.
• 📣 Early and Personal Promotion – Personal calls, direct messages, and a head start on social media built momentum prior to the Giving Day launch.
• 🔧 Easy Backend Access – Anyone on the team could jump in and make updates and even log in donations made offline.
• 📬 Instant Gratification – Donors received immediate acknowledgment of their generosity.
• 💬 Clear Impact – Donors were encouraged with the donor-matching element of this campaign.

“When you do have somebody that’s gracious enough to do a match, that always resonates well with everybody knowing that their money can go further,” Susie encourages.

Susie has goals to explore peer-to-peer fundraising alongside the Giving Day next year as well as expand their use of ambassadors to help spread the word (and excitement!) across multiple marketing channels.

📚Read more: How to Use Multi-Channel Marketing to Boost Fundraising Power

The fundraising team also has plans to grow their base of recurring donors, featuring the monthly giving option in their monthly newsletters to their donor base.

And 4aGC will be there to partner with them every step of the way.

“I’ve talked to two other schools that have a different platform right now and I’ve said, ‘You need to look at [4aGoodCause],’” Susie told us.

“I can ask [Ronald] one or two questions, and he’s going to be right on it, sharing the link that helps walk through the issue or explaining why something’s not possible…. You’re not left questioning… and I appreciate that a whole lot.”

Want to launch a high-performing Giving Day campaign like Culver-Stockton College? Schedule a demo of 4aGoodCause, and we’ll show you how.