Mass Audubon

Strategy, messaging, and materials to plan, launch—and successfully close—their first capital / comprehensive campaign

Mass Audubon is the largest conservation organization in Massachusetts. It operates a statewide network of more than 140 wildlife sanctuaries and nature centers and stewards more than 41,000 acres of land. Supported by more than 160,000 members, it provides a wide range of education programs for children and adults—and its advocacy efforts influence environmental policy at local, state, and federal levels. We collaborated to evolve the strategy, messaging, visual expression—and a modular suite of print and digital materials—to support their first capital campaign: Connecting People and Nature.

An extensive research and investigation phase elevated the need to:
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Transform relationships: The organization was clearly skilled at managing transactional relationships, but for the campaign to be successful, members needed to “invest” in Mass Audubon. Many members were connected only through a specific touchpoint (a sanctuary, a program); our goal was to deepen that connection as well as provide greater understanding of the organization as a whole.
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Differentiate Mass Audubon: New England has no shortage of conservation-minded organizations—many with long histories and effective communications. Our challenge was to elevate Mass Audubon and clearly answer “Why support Mass Audubon.”
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Meet donors where they are: Mass Audubon’s prospects connected to the organization in many different ways. And while initially, Mass Audubon thought that the two “ways in” for donors were land and birds, our research showed that there were other meaningful entry points, such as a “spiritual connection.”

To address these needs and challenges, we developed a suite of messages to connect donor interests and passions with Mass Audubon’s institutional priorities. People gave because messages and materials aligned a prospect’s vision with Mass Audubon’s.

Objectives

Support Mass Audubon’s first capital /comprehensive campaign
Broaden the breadth and depth of members’ connection and commitment
Help move supporters from transactional membership to “investment”—and to a culture of philanthropy
Enable board and other volunteers to be comfortable, effective partners with leadership and development staff
Sustain a wide range of educational programs
Ensure the health of Massachusetts’ natural habitats and wildlife

Collaboration

Conducted extensive qualitative and quantitative research to identify prospective donors: what they cared about and would support
Benchmarked Mass Audubon’s offerings against other conservation organizations to understand what positions Mass Audubon could “own”
Crafted a strategy to meet prospects where they were
Developed different “ways in” to the organization and campaign
Identified sanctuary directors as critical connections to donors and prospect
Created high-level messages and targeted, interest-specific and value-oriented messages
Created a visual system to inform all campaign communications
Wrote, designed, and produced a modular case kit: overview case; templated opportunity sheets; customizable digital presentation
Facilitated workshops to create an effective corps of campaign ambassadors
Helped to bring campaign in over goal, in a shorter timeframe than expected

Scope

Collaborative process with leadership, staff, board
Qualitative and quantitative research
Audit of competitive organizations: their vision, areas of focus, messaging, visual expression
Attributes, storylines
High-level and interest-specific messaging
Campaign name and identifier
Campaign visual system
Modular campaign kit
Board and staff training
Modular campaign kit: print case overview, customizable digital presentation, focus and opportunity templates

Meeting prospects and donors where they are

Through interviews and focus groups, we identified “ways in” for donors and prospects that were wider-ranging than just “land” and “birds.” We were then able to assign relevance ratings, mapping the “ways in” to campaign priorities—helping campaign and sanctuary staff tailor and assemble messages and materials.

Connecting people and nature

The evocative cover for the print case overview brings forward the campaign’s four main priorities. Inside, spreads focus on each in more detail.

Messaging to advance campaign priorities

We learned what different prospects valued about Mass Audubon, and thus were able to write “tilted” messages that both advanced the four campaign priorities—and connected with prospects’ interests and passions.

Customizable digital presentation for campaign ambassadors

Comprised of pages that presented both Mass Audubon’s high-level case and vision and priority-specific messaging, this portable document could be reconfigured to resonate with individual prospects.

Flexible, templated opportunity sheets

We constructed the components of Mass Audubon’s campaign kit to include both high-level, high-production-value materials… as well as materials to house more specific information, designed to be written and produced in-house, on the fly, as needed. The former have long shelf lives; the latter might be useful for a single meeting.