I've personally managed Meta Ads for hundreds of brands big and small
Once to your trustees and once to the cause. That changes how you test, and what you're allowed to say.
Work withCharity accounts face a scrutiny that commercial advertisers do not, and it tends to push decisions in unhelpful directions.
Acquisition is judged on the first donation, which makes regular giving look expensive and one off appeals look efficient, when the opposite is usually true.
Nervousness about spending on advertising means testing is minimal, so the account never learns and every campaign starts uninformed.
The creative reaches for guilt because guilt is known to work, at the cost of how supporters feel about you afterwards.
Reporting to trustees is built around cost per donation, which quietly discourages the very campaigns that build long term income.
The mechanics are the same as any recurring revenue business. The accountability and the ethics are not.
A monthly donor is worth many times a single gift, so what you can afford to spend acquiring one is far higher than most charities allow themselves. Making that case internally, with the numbers behind it, usually unlocks more growth than any change to the campaign structure would.
Creative that treats beneficiaries as people rather than as evidence of suffering can absolutely be effective. It also protects the relationship with supporters who increasingly notice the difference. Where an approach would work but I think it is wrong, I will say so, which is easier when there is no account manager between us.
The reluctance to spend on learning is understandable and it is expensive. A structured testing budget, presented to trustees as investment with defined limits rather than as unaccountable spend, produces knowledge you keep. Every test should answer a question you wrote down first.
Cost per donation is a poor measure when the goal is sustained income. Lifetime value of a donor, retention of regular givers and total funds raised against total spent tell the real story, and they make the case for advertising far better than a single campaign's return does.
I've personally managed Meta Ads for hundreds of brands big and small
The account, the tracking and the creative, plus a look at what donors are actually worth over time rather than at first gift.
Establish what you can afford to invest in acquiring a regular giver, in numbers your trustees can be shown and can sign off.
Angles built on agency and outcome rather than pity, tested deliberately so you learn what your supporters respond to.
Measurement that shows sustained income and donor retention, so good decisions stop looking like bad ones on paper.
What founders say about working with John on Meta campaigns
What I value most is the honesty. John tells me when an idea won't work and why, rather than nodding along and billing me for it. He's genuinely part of the business now, not a supplier I chase for updates.
Sandra Roycroft-DavisFounder, Slimpod
John does the work himself, which after three agencies felt almost strange. He found problems in our account nobody had mentioned in two years, fixed them quickly, and explained every decision in plain English. Our creative output has never been stronger.
Giles HumphriesFounder, Mindful Chef
Yes, and they are worth having, though they come with conditions on how they can be spent. They work best as a way to fund testing and learning rather than as the whole media budget, because a credit funded campaign still needs the strategy behind it to be worth anything.
By presenting it as an investment with a measurable return and defined limits, rather than as marketing cost. If a regular giver is worth a known amount over their tenure, and acquisition costs less than that, the case makes itself. The problem is almost always that nobody has calculated the first number.
Emotion is not the problem, and advertising without it will not raise money. The line for me is whether the person depicted would be content with how they have been shown. That is a judgement call, and it is one I am happy to have an honest conversation about rather than quietly optimising past.
Sometimes not, and I will tell you if I think that. My fees are fixed rather than a percentage of spend, so there is a point below which hiring me takes money away from your cause instead of adding to it.
Tell me what you're spending, what a regular giver is worth to you and how you currently report on it. I'll come back with an honest view on whether I can help.