The Process

London Wildlife Trust has a superb membership base, but they'd never yet been asked for a cash gift to support the Trust’s work further.

In Spring 2020, we delivered the inaugural cash appeal to the members, having previously achieved record-breaking results for Wildfowl and Wetland Trust, Ramblers and other membership organisations. Following that success, the London Skylarks appeal, we delivered a site-specific cold door-drop appeal, and membership upgrade appeal, and now they were preparing for winter.

After discussion with the charity, we agreed on London’s ponds, often overlooked in wildlife and environmental appeals, but crucial for biodiversity.

The Result

The pandemic and the first UK lockdown had meant many Wildlife Trusts members had been encouraged to build wildlife ponds, but we were aware this audience might have less private outdoor space than their more rural fellow Wildlife Trusts members.

So we did our research and liaised with the LWT team to produce a powerful appeal focusing on conservation of biodiversity, including pollinating insects, crucial to our survival, as well as much-loved species such as kingfishers and the humble snakes, frogs and toads.

We also suggested including a thank you to members for staying with them through the pandemic, when they'd had to close some sites during lockdown. The thank you we chose was a little book of seed sticks they could plant to grow wild flowers or pass on as a gift to a friend or loved one.

What we’re most proud of

We’ve built a good trusting relationship with London Wildlife Trust, both the fundraising team and the experts in the field.

Much of that has come from putting the hours in to do our own research, and designing attractive, engaging packs which also teach the donor snippets of wildlife information, for the audience to go and enjoy observing on their walks and Trust reserve visits.

The appeal is mailing at the time of writing, and going live online, so we hope it will do well both in the short term and in engaging the members more deeply for the long term.