Hello friend,

Welcome to Theory of Change! This edition takes 4 minutes to read.

Each week I break down one helpful framework that shows how you—as a journalist, social entrepreneur, changemaker, or nonprofit leader—can apply the thinking behind that framework to build a purpose-driven organisation.

This week’s framework is all about AARRR, also known as Pirate Metrics (why? because they aarrrrr).

It's a powerful tool for understanding and improving your organisation’s engagement and growth, and one of my favourite things to work on with clients because the gains are so quickly realised. While it was originally designed for startups, any nonprofit or mission-driven organisation benefits greatly from tracking how well they’re growing, retaining, and activating their community.

Warning: this email contains dad jokes.

🏴‍ AVAST, YE MARKETERS! 🏴‍

What is it? Pirate Metrics breaks down the key stages of your audience’s journey:

• Acquisition: How are people finding you?

• Activation: Are they having a meaningful first experience?

• Retention: Are they coming back?

• Referral: Are they telling others about you?

• Revenue: Are they supporting you financially (or through key actions like advocacy)?

When should I use it? Pirate Metrics can be especially useful when you're trying to grow your supporter base, deepen engagement, or evaluate how well your current outreach or onboarding strategies are working. For nonprofits, this framework is perfect for:

• Fundraising campaigns: Track how supporters are finding your campaign, engaging with it, and whether they come back for future donations.

• Advocacy efforts: Measure how effectively you’re mobilising supporters and getting them to refer others to your cause, while also tracking any actions they take, like signing petitions or attending events.

Why should I use it? Pirate Metrics provides a clear treasure map of where your supporters or members are dropping off and where they’re engaging. It turns a complex process into simple, trackable steps.

Each stage gives you actionable data, helping you pinpoint where people are getting stuck or disengaged. By breaking it down, you can optimise the journey and make smarter decisions—whether that’s improving your welcome sequence, creating better incentives for referrals, or making it easier for people to donate.

Get started.

To make the most of AARRR, run small experiments to optimise each stage. Here’s a practical, experiment-based approach for each part of the framework:

1: Acquisition
Experiment: Test multiple outreach channels (e.g., social media ads, email campaigns).

• How: Run a one-week campaign on 2-3 platforms with similar messaging tailored to each format.

• Measure: Track how many new supporters engage through each platform.

• Iterate: Focus on the highest-performing channels for your next push.

2: Activation
Experiment: Optimise the first experience (e.g. your welcome email or sign-up page).

• How: Try different variations of your welcome email or donation page.

• Measure: Track open rates, click-through rates, or conversion rates.

• Iterate: Focus on the version that drives the highest engagement

3: Retention
Experiment: Try different engagement methods to keep people involved long-term.

• How: Test two types of follow-up communications—personalised vs. general.

• Measure: Monitor response rates (clicks, replies, sign-ups for future events).

• Iterate: Use the most effective communication style to maintain engagement.

4: Referral
Experiment: Test referral incentives or tools.

• How: Run an email-based invite-a-friend campaign.

• Measure: Track how many referrals come from that source.

• Iterate: Focus on the method that drives the most referrals.

5: Revenue
Experiment: Simplify your donation process or test donor appeals.

• How: A/B test two donation pages—one with detailed impact messaging, one with simple, direct language.

• Measure: Compare donation conversion rates.

• Iterate: Use the version that drives more donations and refine it further.

Iterating yields great results, but you have to do it right. Start small, me hearties, (small number of tests for max. 1-2 weeks per test) and define success metrics ahead of time (e.g., 20% higher open rates). Analyse your results and scale what works.

Adjacent frameworks.

• The Flywheel: A continuous improvement model that focuses on building momentum through tiny, stacking iterations. 

• The Lean Startup, as applied to nonprofits: Quickly test and iterate to find what works best with donors.

• Donor Journey Mapping: A nonprofit-specific framework for tracking donors through similar stages of engagement. Use this if you’re struggling to attract or re-up large grants from foundations.

Futureproofing.

As you apply AARRR, keep an eye on how data privacy and supporter expectations are shifting. With more demand for authentic, transparent relationships and data control, getting reliable metrics may get harder. The metrics you are measuring now may not be obtainable in a year.

Also: AI is making A/B testing much, much easier.

🪁 PARALLEL PLAY 🪁

Three valuable distractions (because all work and no play makes Adam a dull boy):

• My partner and I just bought Brass Birmingham, a supremely beautiful, balanced and nerdy board game involving economic strategy during the industrial revolution.

• Somehow I just got around to watching the Snowden documentary Citizenfour for the first time. It’s an engrossing but “meta” watch (i.e. it tells you more about the filmmakers than the subject).

• Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II was originally released 30 years ago in 1994. Expecting something totally different, I bought it by mistake as a 15 year-old and it changed the course of my musical tastes forever. It’s been re-released.

🌊 WAVE GOODBYE 🌊

Thanks for reading. I coach nonprofit and journalism leaders, and have a bunch of free and paid resources over at Evenly Distributed. Maybe you’ll find something helpful there?

If you were forwarded this mail and like what you see, you can sign up to the newsletter here.

Take care,

Adam