BC Business
The Victoria-based marketing company works with charities across North America
Founder and lead strategist, Generosity X
Life Story: Matthew Hussey used to believe that all entrepreneurs were cutthroat. And although he was always curious about an entrepreneurial career, he doubted that his laidback personality could make the most of it.
So when he moved from Puslinch, Ontario, to attend UVic in 2016, he was only after a bachelor’s degree in geography. Then, a client success specialist opportunity with Shift Agency—which was acquired by Frontier Marketing in 2018—led Hussey to put a pin in university and explore outside roles.
He spent another five years at Frontier working up to a senior strategist role. There, he noticed that charities are underserved when it comes to digital marketing. But the doubts poured in: Could he do it? Would it work?
The passing of his father, who was not only supportive of entrepreneurship but also involved in fundraising, served as a turning point for Hussey. In April 2023, he launched Generosity X to provide marketing services to charities across North America by focusing on avenues that, according to him, are more common in for-profit spaces, including conversion rate optimization and digital ad campaigns.
The company recently tested a number of marketing tactics for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank (GVFB), including a new email strategy where it split the GVFB’s contacts in half and doubled the usual number of emails to one list. The combined services resulted in a 55-percent increase in gifts and a 75-percent increase in revenue, translating to $150,000 in two months for the charity, says Hussey.
Bottom Line: “So many charities across Canada have an appetite to grow but they just need a little bit of direction,” he says. Hussey’s Victoria-based company is on track to hit $500,000 in annual revenue by summer and he hopes to grow the Generosity X team from three to eight by the end of 2024.