NSPCC and Euler
Increased volunteer participation by 3.4% with huge interest from donors for future events
Background
One in five children in the UK has suffered abuse. The NSPCC is here to prevent that. They offer free and confidential services like Childline where children can speak to a trained counsellor about anything that’s on their mind; the NSPCC Helpline, where adults can call if they are worried about a child; and their Speak out Stay safe programme which they deliver to children in schools, helping them to understand what abuse is and what to do if they’re scared or worried. They also campaign to ensure the government is doing more to protect children. At the NSPCC, they believe that every childhood is worth fighting for.
The challenge
Alongside partner Euler, the NSPCC developed an innovative automated journey using Apteco software for their flagship fundraising event, Childhood Day. Every year, volunteers take to the streets across the UK to collect donations from the public. The automated journey needed to ensure that volunteers were given all the information they needed to attend their chosen collection shift. In previous years, this journey was very manual which required lots of resource to manage, lacked meaningful personalisation, and was prone to error.
Watch the full customer story
Watch our video which covers the full impact of Apteco software on the NSPCC, presented by Gary Kenealy, Charlotte Thompson and Ollie Brown.
The Apteco Solution
The NSPCC and Euler used Apteco’s FastStats and PeopleStage software to automate emails to volunteers, including layers of complex personalisation, and responding to volunteer behaviour such as cancellations and multiple shift bookings, while accommodating for varying lead times between registration and event date.
The journey was built at a “transactional table level”, in this case the transaction being a childhood day volunteer registration. This eradicated the issue of duplicate supporters by ensuring that volunteers received the right information relating to their sign up, in particular for volunteers who had multiple sign-ups. Building at a transactional level was an entirely new approach for the NSPCC, and one that has been replicated across their PeopleStage journeys since.
It also meant that volunteers who had cancelled a collection, could receive cancellation emails relating to the collection, whilst still receiving the main emails for any other collections that they had signed up to.
Another new approach was to integrate a conversion journey with Meta expressions of interest. Anyone who responded to adverts on Meta expressing their interest in volunteering was sent a short journey attempting to convince them to fully register.
Bold innovation and Apteco’s dynamic software enabled the NSPCC to deliver an exceptional volunteer experience, which they intend to continue to build upon for next year's Childhood Day campaign. Since the successful implementation of this journey, the NSPCC has incorporated key learnings across the rest of their PeopleStage journey portfolio, developing an excellent supporter experience.
Apteco's FastStats and PeopleStage are crucial for NSPCC's supporter experience communications, enabling tailored, automated journeys for various activities including donation acknowledgements, event stewardship, and fundraising campaigns. Through FastStats and PeopleStage, we can streamline supporter relationship management, supporting millions in fundraising while minimising resource use through sophisticated automation.
Charlotte Thompson, Supporter Experience Manager, NSPCC
Charlotte Thompson, Supporter Experience Manager, NSPCC
The impact on the charity
By leveraging Apteco’s technology and data-driven strategies, NSPCC has not only streamlined their processes, but have also enhanced the volunteer experience. The increased email opt-in rates, high satisfaction levels among volunteers and the successful conversion of volunteers to other NSPCC programmes, all point to the Childhood Day campaign’s wider impact on their mission.
Volunteer participation saw in increase of 3.4%, in part due to the implementation of a new Meta lead generation journey, demonstrating the success of the campaign’s recruitment efforts. Additionally, the number of collection sites expanded significantly compared to the previous year.
High open and click through rates were achieved across all emails (4% and 6% higher than the previous year respectively), with a low unsubscribe rate (0.1% in the main journey) reflecting higher engagement and resonance of the communication content with the target audience.
With 88% of survey respondents finding their collection enjoyable and 90% wanting to take part again next year, the campaign resulted in a vastly improved volunteer experience and an exceptional impact score of 4.73, which was 0.6 points higher than the previous year.
The campaign achieved a 10% increase in email opt-in rates, improving retention opportunities for future activities. This improvement reflected a growing trust among volunteers in the NSPCC’s communications and their willingness to stay engaged with the organisation.
Utilising the smart journey mapping functionality and flexible audience options in PeopleStage, in conjunction with the powerful selection tool of FastStats, the NSPCC were enabled by the Apteco suite to really create a journey that is supporter-centric for volunteers, whilst reducing resources required to fulfil all needs of the supporter.
Gary Kenealy, Business Insight Solutions Consultant, Euler
Gary Kenealy, Business Insight Solutions Consultant, Euler