Mission Aviation Fellowship Canada

How defaulting a Fuel Crisis donation page to Monthly affects recurring and one-time donor conversion

Experiment ID: #204572

Mission Aviation Fellowship Canada

Experiment Summary

Timeframe: 06/11/2026 - 07/09/2026

Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) Canada is a Christian aviation ministry that serves people living in some of the world’s most isolated communities. Through aircraft, MAF transports medical personnel, missionaries, relief workers, and essential supplies to places where roads do not exist, helping bring physical and spiritual care to those who would otherwise be unreachable.

We recently launched a very successful ad campaign centered around helping keep MAF aircraft fueled during an ongoing fuel crisis. The campaign was generating strong acquisition results, and we wanted to see whether the same high-performing traffic could also be used to acquire more recurring Flight Crew donors rather than one-time donors.

The control donation page framed the fuel crisis as an urgent need and encouraged visitors to make a one-time gift, with the donation form defaulting to One-Time.

The treatment retained the same core fuel crisis messaging but repositioned monthly giving as the long-term solution. The donation form defaulted to Monthly, and a new copy introduced MAF’s Flight Crew program, explaining how recurring support provides reliable funding that keeps lifesaving flights operating long after the current fuel crisis has passed. Rather than presenting the campaign as only an emergency response, the treatment positioned becoming a monthly partner as the most effective way to ensure aircraft remain fueled year-round.

Paid advertising traffic was split evenly (50/50) between the two experiences over a four-week testing period.

Research Question

We believed that defaulting the donation form to Monthly and emphasizing the impact of recurring support would increase monthly Flight Crew conversions by clearly explaining the value of monthly giving and reducing decision friction in the form, encouraging more donors to choose an ongoing commitment over a one-time gift.

Design

C: Control

T1: Treatment 1

Results

	Treatment Name	Conv. Rate	Relative Difference	Confidence
C:	Control	0.09%
T1:	Treatment 1	0.92%	896.3%	100.0%

This experiment has a required sample size of 567 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 4,352, and the level of confidence is above 95% the experiment results are valid.

Flux Metrics Affected

The Flux Metrics analyze the three primary metrics that affect revenue (traffic, conversion rate, and average gift). This experiment produced the following results:

0% increase in traffic
× 896.3% increase in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift

Key Learnings

What happened: Defaulting the donation form to Monthly and positioning recurring giving as the long-term solution to the fuel crisis substantially increased the acquisition of new Flight Crew donors. The treatment generated 20 recurring donors compared to 2 for the control -- an 896.3% increase in monthly donor conversion with 100% statistical confidence. While the recurring donor sample was below 50 gifts, the data strongly suggests that the treatment meaningfully increased monthly giving. At the same time, the treatment reduced one-time giving by 52.4% with 100% statistical confidence, contributing to a 24.9% decline in overall donor conversion. Although the decrease in total gifts was not statistically significant (88.8% confidence), it followed a pattern we commonly see in monthly default tests: increasing commitment shifts donor behavior toward recurring support but can discourage some visitors from completing a gift at all. Why we think it happened: The treatment likely succeeded because it aligned every element of the page around a single, consistent ask. Rather than presenting monthly giving as one option among many, the default selection and supporting copy framed joining Flight Crew as the most effective way to solve the underlying problem. By reducing the friction of selecting monthly giving and reinforcing the long-term impact of recurring support, more donors chose an ongoing commitment. At the same time, making monthly giving the primary ask likely introduced a higher perceived commitment than some visitors were prepared to make. Donors motivated to respond to an urgent fuel crisis may have been willing to make an immediate one-time gift but chose not to give when the default expectation became an ongoing monthly commitment. What's next: This result suggests that defaulting to monthly giving can be an effective strategy when the primary objective is acquiring long-term recurring donors, even if it reduces short-term gift volume. We should focus our future tests on minimizing the loss in one-time giving while preserving the strong increase in monthly conversions. Potential follow-up tests include:

Refining the Flight Crew messaging to reduce the perceived commitment of monthly giving
Testing softer monthly positioning (like framing monthly giving as "the easiest way to help year-round")
Testing different ask amounts in the monthly gift array, to see if a lower ask helps prevent a decrease in overall giving

Experiment Documented by Ardee Coolidge

Question about experiment #204572

If you have any questions about this experiment or would like additional details not discussed above, please feel free to contact them directly.