World Food Program USA
Role: Deputy Director, Digital Marketing & Advertising
Timeline: 2022-Present
Challenge
The World Food Programme (WFP) is the UN's emergency food assistance organization and the largest humanitarian organization in the world, providing lifesaving aid to millions around the globe. Funding shortfalls since the pandemic were putting lives at risk.
As WFP's fundraising arm in the US, the largest international donor market, World Food Program USA needed to scale digital revenue significantly over the next several years to fill in urgent funding gaps. The challenge was building a comprehensive paid media program that could drive both new donor acquisition and recurring revenue growth while reaching younger audiences who would form the next generation of donors.
Strategy
I currently lead a team executing a $10 million per year paid media program focused on revenue generation, new donor acquisition, and existing donor nurturing. The strategy involved aggressive testing across channels to identify scalable acquisition opportunities and optimize for long-term donor value.
Key strategic initiatives included:
Display & Native Advertising: Through systematic creative and targeting testing, we identified winning combinations that could scale profitably. We placed an emphasis on contextual targets focused on international news.
TikTok Innovation: Built our TikTok presence from scratch using short-form, educational creative that resonated with younger audiences, focusing on low-dollar donors with high lifetime value potential
Sustainer Program Growth: Partnered with web and analytics teams to test creative variations and upsell strategies that converted one-time donors to monthly givers
Results
Digital ads are now a critical source of revenue and donors for the organization. In 2020 and 2021, the ads program brought in under $2 million annually. That number is now over $6.5 million.
Display & Native: Scaled from $9.3K in revenue (2020-early 2022) to over $1.2 million in the next two years through creative and targeting optimization.
TikTok: Generated over $1 million in revenue from younger, low-dollar donors, successfully reaching the next generation of supporters.
Sustainers: Increased ads-acquired monthly donors from under 13K to over 24K, growing monthly recurring revenue from $260K to $600K through systematic testing and optimization.
Fundraising ads for Instagram & TikTok
+132%
Immediate Ads Revenue
$1.2M+
Display & Native Revenue
$1M+
TikTok Revenue
+94%
Sustainer Growth