What 4 Nonprofits Get Right About Community Engagement

Most nonprofit engagement strategies are really broadcasting strategies in disguise. You send the email, you post the update, you put up the billboard, and you measure success by who saw it. Whether anyone actually did something with what they saw, that's a different question, and most teams quietly stop asking it because the answer is uncomfortable. If your engagement strategy looks more like broadcasting than participation, you're not alone. The gap between attention and action is the defining nonprofit marketing problem of the last decade.

The four organizations in this roundup measure engagement differently. PBS, the Mark Cuban Foundation, the Forest Preserve District of Will County, and Holes in the Wall Collective all run very different missions: public broadcasting, AI education for high schoolers, public lands programming, and climate advocacy. But each one landed on the same idea: participation beats attendance every time. And each one used Goosechase, in very different ways, to give their audiences something real to do.

Here's how each of them approached it, and the four things their stories have in common.

1. PBS: Engagement that fits the audience, not the calendar

The setup

Public media has deep traditions, and the traditions can make digital engagement feel like swimming upstream. "Stations are amazing at pledge drives, but many are still behind on innovative ways to reach audiences online," says Jen Newmeyer, Senior Director of Digital Fundraising Strategy at PBS. "My role exists to change that."

Her team set out to add a layer of play to the familiar pledge experience. The idea was simple: pair broadcast moments with interactive Missions that enhanced viewing rather than interrupted it.

What worked (and what didn't)

The first attempt didn't land. America Made With Love, a beautifully produced, artisan-spotlight pledge experience, saw lower-than-hoped participation. Why? The pledge audience skews older, is less likely to download an app, and the timing collided with already-packed Giving Tuesday and year-end calendars. (The same trap most virtual fundraising campaigns fall into when they don't account for audience match.) "We learned fast that even a great concept struggles if it asks the wrong audience to change habits during the busiest weeks," Jen explains.

The second attempt built for the PBS Books Reader's Club worked. The audience was already eager to engage, the timing wasn't competing with anything, and the format mixed trivia, photo prompts, and URL-based Missions that sent participants directly to author episodes, programs, and newsletter sign-ups. The result: weeks with 10–12 players tied for first, sustained chatter in the readers' group, and roughly 8 PBS stations testing their own games after the national pilots.

The takeaway

PBS landed on three rules from the experience:

• Right audience: Choose communities eager to play (readers, event-goers) over time-strapped pledge viewers.
• Right timing: Avoid peak fundraising crunches. Launch when attention can breathe.
• Right format: Mix Mission types, release in batches, and celebrate progress with prizes.

In Jen's words:

"Letters and newsletters matter, but interactive experiences invite people into the mission. That improves downstream results."

Read the full PBS case study →

2. The Mark Cuban Foundation: Engagement that builds belonging

The setup

The Mark Cuban Foundation's mission is direct: Teens + AI + Partners = Tomorrow Transformed. They focus on students who are often left out of emerging tech: low-income students and students of color whose schools rarely offer AI education. Each fall, they run free AI Bootcamps for high schoolers across the country. Thirty bootcamps run in sync across time zones, all powered by a central livestream platform called Bootcamp TV.

For Charlotte, the foundation's Chief Learning Officer, program's facilitator and a longtime advocate of game-based learning, the goal of the bootcamp was bigger than skills.

"The bootcamp isn't only about teaching AI skills for the workplace. It's about identity and belonging. We want students to genuinely feel that they belong in AI. That they are someone who can do this and use AI confidently."

What worked

Even with 20 hours of instruction, there wasn't enough time to cover everything. Students needed more chances to explore, express themselves, and connect with peers across the country. Charlotte layered Goosechase on top of the technical curriculum: playful, optional Missions students could complete around the structured learning.

The numbers became their own story. In year one, Charlotte built 59 Missions designed to be impossible to complete. Students finished anyway. So she built 70 the next year and made them harder. Seven students still beat her.

That fierce, unprompted engagement was the point. In post-bootcamp surveys, students wrote "the Goosechase was the highlight of my MCF bootcamp experience", a place where they could express themselves more freely while still engaging with AI concepts. One student summarized it: "I really loved the various activities we did, but especially how welcoming and collaborative the Mark Cuban Foundation team was, the mentors, and my peers. I also loved the Goosechase, because it made me perform many small activities, which eventually became really competitive."

The takeaway

For programs like the AI Bootcamp, Goosechase Missions weren't a marketing layer or a fundraising mechanic. They were an identity-building tool. Students didn't just learn AI, they did AI things, with peers, in an environment where they could try, retry, and feel ownership of what they made. That's a different kind of engagement than reading a course description.

Read the full Mark Cuban Foundation case study →

3. Forest Preserve District of Will County: Engagement that turns marketing into participation

The setup

The Forest Preserve District of Will County had every modern marketing tool —videos, social media, a monthly TV program — but couldn't get the community to actually show up in the 23,000 acres of preserves they manage. It's a problem any nonprofit running media-heavy outreach will recognize: more reach, not more participation.

What worked

They built the Take It Outside Challenge on Goosechase. The structure was simple: photo, video, GPS, and trivia Missions tied to specific preserves, run as an ongoing campaign rather than a one-time event.

The numbers tell the story:

• 1,200+ participants in year one, growing to 2,000+ in year four
• 117,000+ Mission submissions (a Goosechase record)
• $40,000 in merch sales funding ongoing nature initiatives
• A 200-person spontaneous in-person meetup (the kind of community engagement event most nonprofits would build a quarter around, generated organically from the campaign)
• An 80%+ completion rate four years later

That last number is the one to pay attention to. Most engagement campaigns fade in year one. This one is in year four, with completion rates that would be impressive for a brand-new launch.

In Digital Communications Manager Chad Merda's words:

"Goosechase presented a unique solution with its interactive and gamified approach. Unlike traditional marketing tools, Goosechase offered a platform where participants could actively be part of a bigger dialogue."

The takeaway

Marketing creates awareness. Participation creates loyalty. The Forest Preserve District didn't replace their videos and social posts, they added a layer that turned passive audiences into active participants. The 200-person spontaneous meetup is the story behind the story: when participation is real, community forms around it, with no extra programming required.

Read the full Forest Preserve District case study →

4. Holes in the Wall Collective: Engagement that makes advocacy feel like discovery

The setup

Climate work is heavy. Most climate engagement campaigns lead with urgency, statistics, and the implicit ask that participants take on the emotional weight of the crisis. That works for the already-converted. It loses everyone else.

Holes in the Wall Collective, an artist-activist nonprofit co-founded by Julia Rose Meeks and Dhira Rauch, refused that frame from the start. "We wanted to engage New Yorkers in climate work in a way that felt fun and inviting, not just for experts, but for everyone," says Julia.

What worked

Their before-state is one of the more relatable stories in this roundup: paper passports and neighborhood stamps, washed out by torrential rain. The Goosechase version, used over five events across Climate Week NYC 2025, connected all five boroughs in a single ongoing experience.

One Mission asked participants to write "a love letter to the Department of Environmental Protection." Concrete. Specific. The kind of detail that gets screenshotted and shared and that turns advocacy into something people actually want to talk about over dinner.

The results weren't measured in donor counts or revenue. They were measured in something more interesting. Dhira:

"Both of the winners told us they went places they'd never been. They just needed that little nudge to explore."

The takeaway

Climate Action NYC's engagement strategy doesn't ask people to feel worse about the world. It asks them to be curious about the city they live in, and to discover, often for the first time, the hidden creeks, beaches, and rivers that make up the urban climate ecosystem. The advocacy is built into the discovery, not bolted on top of it.

In Dhira's words on what comes next: "We're really interested to see how Goosechase as a tool could keep growing with us and how play can keep inspiring real connection and impact."

Read the full Climate Action NYC case study →

What these four nonprofits have in common

Four very different organizations. Four very different missions. Four different definitions of what engagement should accomplish. But four shared principles:

They picked the right audience first, format second.

PBS's biggest learning wasn't how to use Goosechase, it was who to use it with. The pledge audience wasn't ready to engage interactively. The readers' club was. The Mark Cuban Foundation didn't try to engage all teens; they specifically built for students who needed a low-stakes way to explore AI. Holes in the Wall didn't target climate experts; they targeted everyday New Yorkers who'd never been to half their own city.

When engagement campaigns fall flat, it's usually not because the format was wrong. It's because the audience wasn't ready for the format. (Which is why we wrote a separate piece on volunteer recruitment, different audience, very different design considerations.)

They turned passive audiences into active participants.

The Forest Preserve District of Will County had every modern marketing tool — videos, social, even broadcast TV — and still couldn't get people into the preserves. The change came when they stopped talking at their audience and started asking them to do something. That's the through-line in all four stories: a shift from broadcasting to participating. The same shift sits at the heart of interactive fundraising events, volunteer programs, and donor stewardship alike.

They built for joy, not obligation.

The Mark Cuban Foundation Missions weren't required. The Holes in the Wall love-letter Mission wasn't urgent. The Forest Preserve trivia wasn't a test. Every one of these organizations made participation optional and fun, and got more engagement than they would have from any required activity. When something feels like play, people opt in. When it feels like work, they opt out.

They designed for what happens after.

The most under-appreciated metric in all four stories: what happened because of the engagement. PBS saw eight stations spin up local games. The Mark Cuban Foundation saw students come back and try harder Missions the next year. The Forest Preserve District saw a 200-person unplanned meetup and a $40,000 merch business. Holes in the Wall Collective saw participants visit places they'd never been.

None of those outcomes were the goal of the original campaign. They were what happened in addition to the goal when engagement was real.

What this could look like for your organization

If you're running a nonprofit and reading the case studies above with a "yes, but our situation is different" voice in your head, the throughline is that all four of these organizations thought theirs was different too. PBS thought public media was uniquely hard. The Mark Cuban Foundation thought emerging tech was uniquely intimidating. The Forest Preserve District of Will County thought outdoor recreation was uniquely passive. Holes in the Wall Collective thought climate was uniquely heavy.

What they all found is that the principles transfer. Goosechase is an Interactive Experience Platform, the format adapts to whatever your mission requires, with no heavy setup or technical lift. Whether you're building a volunteer onboarding program or making donor stewardship feel less transactional, the underlying playbook is the same. The work is in picking the right audience, designing for joy, and giving people something to do instead of something to consume.

No credit card, no commitment. Or book a conversation with our team to find out about what's possible for your specific mission.

If your team is in the early stages and exploring what's a good fit, our volunteer orientation template is a free, ready-to-use starting point built specifically for nonprofits.