Insight-driven fundraising product development
IFCo takes the Whale and Dolphin Conservation through a review and redesign of its animal sponsorship programme.
We recently finished one of the most fun projects we’ve ever worked on at IFCo: a review and redesign of the animal sponsorship programme at the Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), lead by IFCo consultant Jonathan Cook.
A year ago, they approached us to help reduce the large amount of content they were producing for their three sponsorship programmes - one for dolphins, one for orcas and one for humpback whales - and to help them revitalise the product for a changing market. There was one sponsorship programme for adults and one for children. Each programme included monthly emails for each animal and a magazine four times a year, totalling 16 products per animal per programme.
WDC was competing against some very well-established sponsorship programmes and some ingenious new ones. Our first task was to compare and contrast their product with what was on the marketplace - both for adults and children. Products from other organisations included cuddly toys (a big NO for WDC) and postcards.
This was followed by internal stakeholder engagement and customer/sponsor insights via survey and direct interviews. We found that supporters loved the magazine, but were were less interested in the monthly emails. This insight was presented to WDC at a creative ideas generation workshop, where all the new ideas were framed within the context of the insight findings. So, nothing environmentally unfriendly, nothing that harmed the animals, nothing that increased staff workload.
The new ideas and advertising concepts were mocked up by our design team and tested with the target audiences and existing customers/supporters and the final product was (re)born. WDC is now receiving the first batch of new materials, car stickers, welcome packs and most exciting, sticker books with monthly stickers sent out as the children's product. WDC is ready for the relaunch, confident in the fact that by following an insight-driven fundraising development strategy they have a product their supporters will love.