A youth basketball club launched at 11:32 PM on a Sunday and waited 36 hours for its first gift

What did the club set out to fund?

The fall season: gym time, uniforms, and tournament entries. The club created a team calendar on a Friday afternoon with a target of 20 players and a goal of $9,300 (20 × a $465 September calendar), then published it at 11:32 PM on Sunday, August 24. Thirteen players joined and each got a personal link and QR code by automatic email. No invite list was uploaded.

How did the money come in, day by day?

A slow start, a first Saturday of $239, then a quiet week, then the wave: from Monday of week three the calendar took $209, $140, $132, $40, and $94 on consecutive days as more players’ families got their links.

How much did each player raise?

Six of thirteen players raised money. The top player reached $368, the second $256. Seven players joined and never shared their link, which is where the missing $8,300 of goal lives.

1. Player 1$368
2. Player 2$256
3. Player 3$184
4. Player 4$90
5. Player 5$57
6. Player 6$39
7. Player 7$0
8. Player 8$0
9. Player 9$0
10. Player 10$0
11. Player 11$0
12. Player 12$0
13. Player 13$0

When do supporters give?

After-school and late: the biggest block was 3 to 4 PM, Eastern, with a second peak between 11 PM and 2 AM. Almost nothing came in before noon.

• 10 AM1 gifts
• Noon–2 PM11 gifts
• 3–4 PM17 gifts
• 5–6 PM10 gifts
• 8–10 PM7 gifts
• 11 PM–2 AM12 gifts

What did a gift look like?

• Average gift $17.14; the largest gifts were $47, $40, $34, and $30.
• One date per checkout, one player per supporter.
• The 30th was the most-claimed date, then the 10th, 27th, and 29th.
• 71% of gifts carried a message on the calendar. No supporter gave anonymously.
• 39 shares from the share menu against 58 gifts, the highest share rate of any team here: families passed the link on, and 378 visits produced the gifts.

Hour by hour, what happened?

What the timestamps show.

1. Sun · 11:32 PM · Day 1

   Launched late on a Sunday night

   The calendar went live at 11:32 PM. Nobody was awake to share it, and the first gift came 36 hours later, at 12:17 PM on Wednesday. Compare the weeknight-before-dinner launches in the other case studies, which had a first gift within two hours.

2. Days 3–9 · First wave

   $368 in the first nine days

   The first families to share carried the opening. $119 on Wednesday, $239 on Saturday, then a week of almost nothing while the rest of the roster held their links.

3. Days 15–19 · Second wave

   Late-joining families brought 62% of the total in five days

   Once four more players’ families started sharing, the calendar took $615 in five consecutive days. The lesson is the same one every team case study teaches: the money follows the links, and the links have to leave the group chat.

What should your group copy?

• Do not launch at midnight. Publish on a weeknight between 5 and 8 PM, when families are on their phones. This club lost a day and a half waiting for a first gift.
• Get every player’s link shared in the first 48 hours. Six links raised $994. Seven players never shared, and the goal was built on 20.
• Send the team message on day 5. Days 7 through 14 raised $21. One message to the roster in that window is the cheapest money in the campaign.
• The share menu works when families use it. 39 shares for 58 gifts is the best share rate here. Point every player at it in the join email.

Proof from the other calendars

• A weeknight launch before dinner: first gift in two hours
• Built at 3:37 PM, live at 4:34 PM, first gift at 4:55 PM
• The day-12 re-send that produced 29% of a theatre club’s total

A demo of the calendar they used

The team calendar every player shared.

Questions about this campaign