National Audubon Society

Background

The National Audubon Society protects birds and the places they need, today and tomorrow, throughout the Americas using science, advocacy, education, and on-the-ground conservation.

Customer profile

• Product: Fundraising and Engagement
• Sector: Nonprofit
• Vertical: Animal welfare, environmental change

Challenges

Audubon saw traction with short-term fundraising, but wanted to increase their overall long-term fundraising. Historically, they had run a small sustainer program, consisting primarily of donor conversions through telemarketing and canvassing. To build out this area, they began expanding their sustainer program through their digital channels in conjunction with their migration to Bonterra Fundraising and Engagement. They carefully crafted a plan to go sustainer-first with their digital fundraising, including eventually running a sustainer-first GivingTuesday.

Outcomes

• Optimized conversions across their pages by offering easy one-click donations through Bonterra’s FastAction network of saved donor profiles.
• Increased sustainer retention by using an automatic credit card updater feature to ensure donations were processed when credit card numbers changed due to theft, expiration, or card loss. Gone were the days of losing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars per month because of a major credit card breach issue.
• Dramatically grew first-year retention with an annual auto-renewal donation button — ultimately reaching triple the 30% industry average for first-year donor retention.

Audubon ran their initial sustainer-first GivingTuesday campaign predicting that, though they would likely lose some one-time revenue, it would be made up for within a year. They broke even within three months and acquired more than 2,000 sustainers in the month of December.  

These strong sustainer-first results have set them up for even more success. Future plans for their sustainer program involve building out strong stewardship programs, integrating new channels like mobile messaging, and cultivation for the sustainer cohort already reaching their mid-level giving threshold.