My name is Heather, I’m the COO of Our Front Porch. We provide long-term disaster recovery support for people who have had home fires, floods, wildfires, or anything like that. This call was super helpful because we’ve been trying to grow our supporter base. One of the ways we wanted to do that was by offering free content — in this case, a tool to help people understand their insurance policy and make sure they have the right coverage in case disaster strikes.
Ed was super helpful and set this up for me in a way I didn’t even know where to start. I appreciate that. We have the whole thing up and running in a very short time, something that probably would have taken me days to figure out. I’m very appreciative of all your help and how quickly you got everything done. Thank you.
Would I recommend you? Absolutely. You were super helpful, and I appreciate all the behind-the-scenes work you did before we even got on the call. Thank you.
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Case Study: Automating Compassion—Strategic Lead Generation & Donor Acquisition for "Our Front Porch" From Technical Friction to Seamless Support: Building a High-Converting "Insurance Decoded" Funnel
Client Overview
| Category | Strategic Detail |
|---|---|
| Client Name | Heather Korth (COO, Our Front Porch) |
| Industry | Nonprofit / Disaster Recovery / Social Services |
| The Challenge | |
| The Solution | |
| Certifications | |
| The Impact | |
| The Tech | |
| The Results & ROI |
https://youtu.be/XryaKUNeqj0?si=X8YYTCG_gjpheUaT
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Organization: Our Front Porch
Industry: Nonprofit Disaster Recovery / Housing Support
Leadership: Heather Korth, COO
Founder Background: Architect (Heather) + Social Worker (Co-founder) met at disaster response training, saw gap in support for small-scale disasters
Geographic Focus: Denver, Colorado
Services: Long-term recovery support for home fires, floods, wildfires—document replacement, belongings restoration, insurance navigation, free therapy, mental health support, rebuilding assistance
Operational Scale: 2-3 home fires daily in Denver requiring support
Timeline: 10 years of operation
Revenue Model: Individual donor-funded (primarily former clients), grant funding challenges
Digital Infrastructure: Squarespace website, MailChimp email system, basic marketing capacity
Challenge: Need to grow supporter base beyond former clients through free value-added content (insurance policy decoder guide) but lacked technical knowledge to build automated lead generation funnel
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Heather arrived at the consultation with a clear strategic vision but zero technical capacity to execute it. Our Front Porch wanted to grow their donor base by offering free educational content—specifically, an insurance decoder guide helping people understand coverage and prepare for potential disasters. The strategy made perfect sense. The implementation felt impossible.
The organization faced the funding challenge common to disaster recovery nonprofits working outside major catastrophic events. When hurricanes devastate entire regions or wildfires destroy thousands of homes, federal and state resources flow. Media coverage attracts donor attention. Relief organizations mobilize with substantial budgets. But when a single house catches fire in the middle of the night in Denver, no government help arrives. No national news coverage generates sympathy donations. The Red Cross provides a few days of immediate support, then refers the family to Our Front Porch—where a small team tries to help them rebuild entire lives with minimal resources.
The Funding Dependency Problem:
Our Front Porch's most reliable supporters were former clients—families who'd experienced house fires, received comprehensive support during recovery, and wanted to give back once they'd returned to stability. This created beautiful mission alignment but problematic financial dependence. Former clients, no matter how grateful, couldn't sustain organizational operations alone. Grant funding proved difficult to secure for ongoing operational support rather than specific disaster response projects.
The insurance decoder guide represented strategic thinking about expanding beyond the immediate disaster victim circle. Everyone with a home needs insurance. Most people don't understand their policies. A free guide providing genuine value could attract attention from homeowners and renters who hadn't personally experienced disaster but recognized the importance of preparation. These new supporters might donate to help others even if they'd never needed Our Front Porch's services themselves.
The Technical Knowledge Gap:
Heather understood the strategic vision perfectly. Create valuable free content, offer it in exchange for email addresses, build email list of engaged supporters, nurture that list toward donations. Standard lead generation funnel. Simple in concept, complex in execution for someone whose expertise was architecture and disaster recovery, not digital marketing automation.
She'd created the insurance decoder guides—separate versions for homeowners and renters covering policy components, coverage gaps, and preparation recommendations. The content was solid. But she had no idea how to build the infrastructure that would: capture email addresses through forms, automatically deliver the guides via email, add contacts to MailChimp for ongoing communication, and track who downloaded which guide for segmentation purposes.
The Squarespace website had forms, but Heather didn't know how to connect them to MailChimp. MailChimp had automation capabilities, but she'd never built email sequences or landing pages. The technical barrier between strategic vision and actual implementation felt insurmountable without hiring expensive developers or marketing agencies—resources Our Front Porch didn't have.
The Platform Integration Challenge:
During our consultation, we attempted connecting the Squarespace form directly to MailChimp for automated data transfer. The platforms theoretically integrated, but technical errors kept blocking the connection. Authorization failures, integration timeouts, and unclear error messages created frustration. Even with my technical background, troubleshooting the Squarespace-MailChimp connection consumed substantial time without resolution.
This illustrated the challenge nonprofits face when cobbling together different platforms without integrated systems or technical support. Each platform works independently, but making them communicate requires technical knowledge most nonprofit staff don't possess. When integrations fail, organizations either abandon automation entirely or pay consultants to fix problems they can't diagnose themselves.
The User Experience Uncertainty:
Beyond technical implementation, Heather faced user experience questions about the optimal donation ask placement. Should the guide download trigger an immediate email requesting donations? Should the PDF itself include donation appeals on the final page? Should a separate landing page appear after download with impact stories and giving opportunities?
The concern was timing—ask too early and you seem transactional rather than genuinely helpful. Wait too long and the moment of gratitude when someone receives valuable free content passes without conversion opportunity. Strike the wrong tone and you undermine the authentic care Our Front Porch demonstrated through their actual disaster recovery work.
The Resource Scarcity Reality:
Heather worked full-time as COO managing actual disaster recovery cases while trying to build marketing infrastructure in spare moments. She couldn't dedicate days to figuring out MailChimp automation or troubleshooting Squarespace integrations. The consultation needed to deliver working infrastructure quickly or the project would stall indefinitely while she focused on the urgent work of helping fire victims rebuild their lives.
This time constraint meant I couldn't just explain concepts and send her away to implement independently. I needed to build the actual infrastructure during our 43-minute call, test it live, and hand over something that worked immediately rather than a to-do list of technical tasks she'd never complete.
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