Latest / The Marketing Funnel Podcast with Fexingo: Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action Stages / How a Nonprofit Uses the Funnel to Turn Awareness into Action
Transcript
- Lucas: Nonprofits and for-profits both want the same thing from a marketing funnel: take someone who has never heard of you and turn them into someone who acts. But the mechanics are different, because the 'action' isn't a purchase — it's a donation, which is an emotional decision with a financial cost. Luna: And arguably harder, because there's no product to hand over. You're asking someone to give money with no tangible return. Lucas: Right. So today I want to look at one nonprofit that has, in my opinion, one of the most elegant funnels in the space: charity: water. The water-well nonprofit founded by Scott Harrison in 2006. Luna: Yeah, I've seen their ads — the ones with the striking photos of kids drinking clean water. Always felt like they were doing something different. Lucas: They are. And I think the reason it works is that they respect the funnel stages more rigorously than most nonprofits. Let's start at the top: awareness. Luna: How did they get people to know about them in the first place? They didn't have a big ad budget. Lucas: They didn't. But they had a story. Scott Harrison had been a nightclub promoter in New York, then had a kind of crisis of conscience and spent years volunteering on a hospital ship in West Africa. He came back and started charity: water with almost no money, but he had a compelling personal narrative. Luna: That story itself became the awareness engine. Lucas: Exactly. In 2006, he gave a talk at a small church in New York. That talk was recorded, and it spread. Within a year, they had raised a few hundred thousand dollars — not huge, but enough to build proof of concept. Then in 2008, they released a documentary called "The Spring" that followed the construction of a well in Uganda. That film was shared on YouTube before YouTube was really a platform for long-form content. It got millions of views. Luna: So the awareness stage was driven by earned media — storytelling, not paid ads. Lucas: Yes. And that's important, because for the next stage — interest — they needed to build trust. And they did it with a radical transparency move: the 100% model. They promised that every single public donation goes directly to water projects. Operating costs are covered by a separate group of private donors. Luna: That's a huge trust signal. If I'm considering donating, knowing 100% goes to the cause removes a major objection. Lucas: Right. And they back it up with proof. On their website, you can see GPS coordinates of every well they've funded, photos, the date it was drilled, the number of people it serves. It's basically a real-time dashboard of impact. That turns interest into consideration — the decision stage. Luna: But even with that, making the actual donation requires a trigger. What pushes someone from 'this is interesting' to 'I'll give now'? Lucas: For charity: water, one of the biggest triggers has been Giving Tuesday. They've made that day their Super Bowl. In 2024, for example, they raised over $15 million in a single day — and that was after the campaign had already been teased for weeks. They built anticipation. They had matching donors lined up. They used email sequences and social media to create a sense of urgency without being pushy. Luna: Matching donors — that's a classic decision-stage tactic. 'Your gift will be doubled' reduces the friction of 'is my little donation enough?' Lucas: Right. And then, once someone donates, they enter the action stage — but charity: water defines action not as the one-time gift, but as becoming an ongoing supporter. They have a program called The Spring — named after that early documentary — where donors give a monthly recurring donation. The average monthly gift is about $30. Luna: And if you're already giving monthly, you're much more likely to stay engaged long-term. Lucas: Exactly. They also send updates: 'Here's the well your donations helped build.' They show the faces, the village name, the completion date. That turns a donor into a storyteller — which feeds back into the top of the funnel. The donor shares it with friends. Luna: So the funnel becomes a loop. Awareness leads to interest, to decision, to action, and action generates new awareness. Lucas: That's the ideal. And I think this is a model that any business could learn from — especially if you're selling something intangible, like a subscription or a service. You have to earn trust at every stage. Luna: You know, speaking of trust and action — I think a lot of our listeners have found these marketing funnel episodes genuinely useful. If these conversations have sparked something you've actually applied, or even just made you think differently about how you reach people, that's exactly what we hope for. And if you want to help keep these episodes coming — no ads, no sponsors — you can support the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Totally optional, but deeply appreciated. Lucas: Yeah, we don't ever want to put that behind a paywall. The funnel should be open to everyone. So if you've gotten value, great — and if you want to chip in, that link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Now, back to charity: water — one thing I find fascinating is how they handle the 'decision' stage for big donors. Luna: Oh, the high-net-worth funnel? Lucas: Exactly. They have a separate program called The Well — it's for donors who give $10,000 or more. Those donors get a personal relationship manager, periodic calls, exclusive site visits. It's basically a B2B sales funnel applied to philanthropy. Luna: So they segment the funnel. The mass-market funnel is self-serve, and the high-value funnel is high-touch. Lucas: Right. And the numbers back it up. According to their 2025 annual report, donations over $10,000 accounted for about 40% of total revenue. That's a lot of money coming from a small number of people. So that high-touch investment pays off. Luna: It's like a classic enterprise sales process: awareness through reputation and referrals, interest through a relationship manager, decision through site visits and proof of impact, action through a major gift. Lucas: Exactly. And they even have a 'decision' accelerator: they offer donor-advised fund matching, planned giving options, things that make it easier for wealthy donors to say yes. They remove friction at every point. Luna: So the overall lesson is: map your funnel stages honestly, build trust at each step, and reduce friction before you ask for the action. Lucas: I think that's a good summary. And charity: water shows that even a nonprofit selling something as intangible as clean water can build a funnel that converts. If they can do it, most businesses can too. Luna: I'd love to see a follow-up on how they use digital ads now — they must be doing some paid acquisition at the top. Lucas: That's a good idea. Let's put a pin in that for a future episode.