Covenant House California
Esti Iturralde

There are an estimated 1 million homeless youth in the United States - thousands of them living in abandoned buildings, inside dumpsters, in parks and alleyways, trying to survive on the streets. Since 1998, Covenant House California (CHC) has been serving homeless and at-risk youth ages 13 to 24 in the Bay Area.

We launched online messaging, advocacy, fundraising, events, and community-building tools in June 2006, and have since raised $35,000 through online donations. In September, we used peer event functionality to hold our first Yogathon, raising $15,000 from 60 individuals, and growing our list by 200. We drove participation through an email campaign to an initial list of 1,000 constituents.

We planned an email campaign to engage constituents through personal stories about the kids Covenant House has "saved from the streets." These stories are also on our website, which has an online donation page.

We also drove online constituents to our Nov. 16 Bay Area Candlelight Vigil for Homeless Kids, a free, annual awareness-raising event attended by 100 Oakland residents and featured in the pages of the Oakland Tribune and on the 10 o'clock news of the local Fox affiliate KTVU.

The email campaign promoting the Vigil featured a link to an online quiz testing people's awareness of issues surrounding homeless and at-risk youth. Fifteen percent of email recipients took the quiz, which opens with a light trivia question, "Which of the following famous people was once young and homeless?" After completing the quiz, constituents receive the answers and a link to a landing page about the Candlelight Vigil and a link to donate during the holidays.