Scaling Payment Adoption from 60% to 98% GDV at GoFundMe Pro

When I joined Classy (now GoFundMe Pro, GoFundMe’s B2B nonprofit software business) as its first customer marketing hire, the company was at an inflection point. In my first two weeks, we closed our Series D funding, the founder stepped down and named the new CEO, and we were about to double the product and engineering team and ship 30+ new products and features over the next few years. 

I was responsible for building demand generation for the customer base, driving upgrades and expansion for the new post-sales team, and leading product marketing and adoption for existing customers. Our customers were U.S. based nonprofits, with the largest opportunities concentrated in the mid-market and enterprise segments and their multi-person buying committees.

Classy Pay—the company’s payment product and strategic foundation for future innovation—processed about 60% of gross donation volume (GDV); the other 40% ran through multiple processors. Meanwhile, we were about to launch a suite of new payment options, recurring frequencies, and reporting features, and annual nonprofit donation volume would grow from $1 billion to $2.6 billion in my tenure.

Getting customers onto Classy Pay was the moment that mattered: without broad adoption, the next phase of product growth would be harder to unlock.

The company’s objective was to make Classy Pay the default payment solution for the customer base: the fiscal-year target was 85% of gross donation volume (GDV), with a longer-term goal of 100% adoption.

My objective was broader than promoting a feature. I owned the product marketing and customer marketing strategy end to end—value propositions, audience segmentation, messaging, landing pages, email and in-product programs, post-sales playbooks, and the adoption funnel—while being accountable for customer growth, upgrades, expansion, and retention.

The biggest constraint: This was a full migration, not just an adoption campaign. It was equal parts product marketing, B2B sales, and customer adoption.

Customers had to accept contract changes, new pricing and transaction fees, and the operational challenge of moving payment processing inside complex B2B finance and reporting workflows. I also inherited the initiative in my first two weeks, from a previous PMM, with an unfinished product-marketing foundation just as the company was launching a new website, brand, and marketing automation platform.

I had to build the engine while plugging into a fast-moving product and engineering release cycle. Timing added pressure: I started in late March, and needed to maximize adoption before November and December, when roughly 30% of annual donation volume came through the platform. Success meant exceeding the 85% fiscal-year GDV target and ultimately getting as close to 100% as possible.