A while back, I wrote about the tension between short-term performance and long-term brand building.
That tension still exists (and may always!). But I don’t see it as a problem.
The truth is, we need both.
The way I see it, performance marketing is the oxygen of fundraising. It keeps the mission alive. It pays for the work that needs to happen right now. But brand is the heartbeat. It’s what keeps generosity flowing long after a campaign ends.
I’ve spent the last couple of years trying to find the right rhythm between the two. Not just balancing them conceptually, but also building practical systems where they feed each other.
And we’re starting to see what happens when you do.
When we run campaigns that lead with storytelling and impact before the ask, we see higher average gift sizes. When we take the time to build familiarity through consistent creative and messaging, our engagement rates lift. And when we nurture new audiences over months with true value instead of rushing to the ask right away, second-gift conversions rise.
Those results didn’t come from chance. We did it on purpose! They came from choosing to build trust first.
That’s what brand work does. It plants seeds that performance can later harvest.
I love to talk about WARC’s research that shows that organizations that move from performance-only strategies to a healthy mix of brand and performance strategies see a 90% median ROI increase. Also, overcorrecting from too much emphasis on branding toward a focus on short-term gains usually results in long-term ROI dropping by as much as 40%.
I’ve felt both sides of that firsthand.
There’s a very real temptation to optimize everything around what’s measurable in the moment—whether click-through rates, cost per acquisition, return on ad spend, or whatever other metric shows up nicely on our dashboards. Those things absolutely matter—they help us learn, refine, and scale. But when they become the only measures of success, we unintentionally cap our own potential.
Because the biggest drivers of generosity—trust, familiarity, consistency, and clarity—are often the hardest to measure.
Every gift is a decision of trust. Every click, a small act of belief. And that is built long before a donation form ever loads.
That’s why I believe the future of fundraising is not about louder asks. It’s about longer relationships.
Brand × performance is how we get there. Brand builds memory, affinity, trust, and emotional connection. Performance gives those things an outlet for action.
When those two work together, it’s not just better creative or higher conversion rates. It’s healthier pipelines and more sustainable growth.
That’s what I want for our sector.
Because at the end of the day, all of the data, the design, the messaging, etc., is in service of people. Real people who give because they care about the mission.
Our job is to help them remember why they care and to keep showing up consistently enough that when they’re ready to give, we’re already there.
Mitch Nelson is the Director of Donor Engagement Strategy at Awana.
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