One Video. Five marketing emails. Consistent social content. How an end of year campaign for Global Disciples Canada resulted in them achieving 133% of target with 0$ in ad spend
The Brief
Global Disciples Canada trains local leaders in least-reached communities around the world to make disciples and plant churches. Their mission statement: Until the whole world knows. Since 2008, that model has helped plant more than 35,000 churches globally — run by local leaders, in their own communities, not imported from the west.
At the end of 2025, their goal was to raise $150k to plant 42 new churches around the world.
The Problem
Before this campaign, GDC's outward marketing wasn't bringing in new revenue. Income came almost entirely from grants and the Executive Director's own network.
Their public-facing content was mostly social posts pairing a Bible verse with an image, plus a handful of appeals mailed out through the year.
It wasn't reaching anyone new. They needed a new pool of support to draw from and a way to reach it.
GDC's physical postal mail drop ran exactly as it always had. It's the channel they've relied on for years, and it wasn't touched.
The problem is, they were reaching no new people with the mail drop.
Generates around $40/50k per year
*Not Lean’s work. Included for the full picture
Built from scratch. Designed, written and executed by Lean.
One Core Video, telling the campaign story
Cut into short-form snippets for social
Paired with a five email sequence
Shared consistently across all channels
All Lean's Work
Most nonprofit giving happens late. Industry-wide, December alone brings in over a third of annual online revenue — the final week does another tenth of it, and the last day alone accounts for 4% (M+R Benchmarks, 2026).
Global Disciples campaign got there early. A third of their $150,000 goal was already raised in the first 8 days, well before the usual December rush even started.
