Impact hacking [working definition] – a process of rapid experimentation across marketing channels to identify the most effective, efficient ways to grow a nonprofit’s web traffic to grow its impact.

“Growth hacking” has gotten a lot of talk recently in Silicon Valley. Startups are trying to find the fastest ways to get their products in the hands of users and grow their revenue for investors. As nonprofits, we can adopt this mentality and harness it for good – which is why we are excited to bring you this course on #ImpactHacking.

We want to help you go from zero to 60 with your nonprofit’s web traffic. Why do we care so much about growing traffic? Because we know that, if done correctly, more traffic to your website will mean more impact for your organization. This course will move through four phases of Impact Hacking:

Measure – Why does traffic even matter? How does it help your organization change the world for the better? Understand how to tie your organization’s mission to measurable, concrete goals on your website and other web platforms. Make sure you understand how to use the data to see what is working (driving more impact) and what isn’t. We’ll help you make the case that more website traffic equals more impact for your organization. Grow – Tried and true techniques to boost web traffic. We know that nonprofits don’t have the fancy ad agencies and huge marketing budgets to compete with the big brands. In this section, we’ll look at the free and cheap resources that nonprofits can use to game the system and get major traffic growth. Optimize – Now that you’ve boosted your web traffic, it’s time to make sure that you’re getting the most out of your users. One small tweak to your site could mean the difference between 100 and 1,000 conversions over time. In this section, we look at ways to improve your site over time through design and technology and make sure it’s working as hard as your marketing efforts are. Build capacity – This is not a one-time growth hack. We want you to integrate these techniques and approaches into the fabric of your nonprofit’s culture. We’ll look at some ways to build a data-savvy team and keep them connected to the data so that everyone has a stake in your organization’s growth. You may find that you need to bring in outside help to really take your growth to the next level, so we’ll talk about how to find trusted vendors for your web projects.

Along the way, we’ll share case studies from Power Poetry, an awesome nonprofit organization that used all of the strategies we discuss to build their poetry platform from 0 to 300,000 active users.

This course will give you all the fundamentals you need to build a digital strategy for your nonprofit team and jet-start your nonprofit’s impact hacking.





This is a shortened version of our full-length course. To get additional information about the Google Ad grant, tech tools, and hiring, check it out in the university section of Whole Whale's website.