Final Slides 382e4f

Services Marketing

Massachusetts Audubon Society – Case Study

GROUP  Aimen Azam  Tabreek Younas   Mehak Afzal  Rameez Sheikh  Jameel Saddqiue 

2

COMPANY BACKGROUND Founded: 1896  Headquartered: Lincoln, Massachusetts  Not associated with more famous National Audubon Society  65372 (2001).  Operate 58 wildlife sanctuaries: 41 opened to the public, 23 staffed 

INTRODUCTION The Massachusetts Audubon Society, founded in 1896 by Harriet Hemenway and headquartered in Lincoln, Massachusetts, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to "Protecting the nature of Massachusetts." Mass Audubon is independent of the National Audubon Society, and in fact was founded earlier.  Massachusetts Audubon Society (MAS) seek to develop a strategy to increase the loyalty and involvement of its current .  Communication strategy to be developed to increase the member value. 

ABOUT MASS AUDUBON •Mass Audubon works to protect the nature of Massachusetts for people and wildlife. •Together with more than 100,000 , we care for 34,000 acres of conservation land. •Provide educational programs for 225,000 children and adults annually. •Advocate for sound environmental policies at local, state, and federal levels. •Mass Audubon's mission and actions have expanded since our beginning in 1896 when our founders set out to stop the slaughter of birds for use on women's fashions. • Today we are the largest conservation organization in New England. •Our statewide network of  wildlife sanctuaries, in 90 Massachusetts communities, welcomes visitors of all ages and serves as the base for our work.

SERVICES The main services can be categorized as below: • Wildlife Sanctuaries • Environmental summer camp • Natural history travel programs Lectures, guided nature walks and educational programs for children. • Stores focus on natural history merchandise. • Advocacy efforts work to  protect the nature of Massachusetts through public policy.

Other Players in the Environment Movement 

293 ed national levels environmental organization based in United States.



Major player: Friends of the Earth, National Audubon Society, Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy, Wilderness Society



National Audubon VS Massachusetts Audubon = similar agenda



104 regional player in Massachusetts  Work

together to advocate political agenda

 Compete 

for member, land and MONEY!

Public sector: National Park Service, Commonwealth of Massachusetts preserved land for recreational purposes

Evolution of Mass Audubon 

Initial focus on bird protection, MAS embraced a variety of conservation issues, including protection of land and habitat especially wetlands.



In 1916, America’s first private wildlife sanctuary



In 1952, Louise Ayer Hathaway bequeathed to MAS her Drumlin Farm Estate



Gerard Bertrand (1980-1998) MAS acquired many threatened locations through gift or purchase



hip grew from 26,600 to 67,000 in 1998 while area of land protected from 11,600 to 28,000 acres

,

New Leadership 

In January 1999, Laura Johnson as the Society new President



Develop a clear sense of direction



“What are we and what do we want to be?”

The Resources Division

10

• The organization structure consisted of 4 functional areas, each of which was each headed by a vice president reporting to Laura Johnson

• Used to be under program division. • After findings of the Science Review Committee, it was separated to form new division in order to sharpen its focus and raise its stature. 11

• There were five scientists employed under this division.

• MAS’s operating Revenue increased 458% within 21 years

12

• MAS has a group of experienced and competent top management. • The head of Resource Division, Steven L. Solomon, previously was VP of resources at the Museum of Fine Arts, as well as Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. • The director of hip section, JanO’Neil has 12 years experience with New Boston Group, a telemarketing firm that made fundraising calls for nonprofits, many of them in the environmental area. 13

• 2 years working experience in detailed analytical studies for nonprofit clients.

As of 2001, MAS was operating 58 wildlife sanctuaries across the Commonwealth, of which 41 were opened to the public and 23 were staffed. The area of land protected by the Society rose from 11,600 (in 1980) to 29,100 acres in 2001.

• Embraced an annual fund to raise unrestricted gifts and capital campaigns to finance specific projects. • Nora Frank, director of Development believed strongly in the need to keep donors and informed and involved about the usage of donations.

15

• However, MAS has no common vehicle outside of solicitation that communicates to people about the usage of donations and tells them how they can get further involved.

• The director found insufficient information in the database to enable for creating detailed profiles of the hip. • Re-validated hip strategy, invested new hip and development software, etc. • The number of hip was 65,372 in 2001. 16

• About 70% of renewed at the same rate, 20% upgraded, and 10% downgraded.

• Susannah Caffry, the director found that not everybody in the organization understood or appreciated the value of marketing perspective. • It took her some time to get the staff to involve on scheduling, pricing, and service features.

18

• Worked in aligning the objectives of MAS’s communications activities without undermining the strengths of the organization – an important one being the commitment and feeling of ownership demonstrated by the Sanctuary directors and other program staff.

 EDUCATION PLAN 

Existing education programs lacked common focus and connection to Mass Audubon themes and Mission

 New • •

•

Education Plan Leverage unique strengths New plan emphasized on creating significant outdoor experiences To meet varied learning styles, the plan called for a mix of live programs, nature center exhibits, and self guided trails, plus opportunities for learning through publications, audiovisual media, interactive pages on the MAS website, and articles in local Newspapers.

CONT.. 8/22/17

Society mailed 500000-700000 letters/year at an average cost of $0.39 each.  Response rate was only 1%  Society predicted that 55% of existing would renew their hip but it was 35% only  At renewal time, were encouraged to migrate to higher levels of hip: ing ($60), Defender ($75), Donor ($100), Protector ($150), Sponsor ($250), Patron ($500) and leadership friend ($1250) 

HIP

•

•

•

Insufficient information in the database to create profiles of the Initial task was to find ways to validate which hip strategies worked and which did not. $4,00,000 were being invested in new hip software Between 1997-1999, MAS hip had surged from 54,400 to 67,400 which included a $400,000 advertising campaign

8/22/17

•

HIP, CONT.. o o o o

o

declined to 65,000 Society faced a churn of 20% each year hip cost was $47, initially it was $25 only 45% of the were recruited at the sanctuaries and 42% through direct mail solicitation ission charges to the sanctuaries for non- from $3-$6 for adults and $2-$4 for children

SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS – INTERNAL ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS

-- SWOT and TOWS Analysis -Strengths • Strong sanctuary system • Scientific expertise capability • Advocacy capability • Having a group of ionate staff • Higher renewal rate for new compare to other organization. • Competent and experienced management team. • High quality of education program. 23 • Have large area of sanctuaries across Massachusetts.

SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS – INTERNAL ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS

-- SWOT and TOWS Analysis --

Weaknesses • The existing education programs lacked a common focus and connection to Mass Audubon themes and mission. • MAS has no common vehicle to keep donors and informed the usage of the donations. • MAS confuse about the relationship between MAS and National Audubon Society. • Lack of a common communication strategy among sanctuaries, programs and events conducted, with the primary objective being to increase member value.

SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS – INTERNAL ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS

-- SWOT and TOWS Analysis -Opportunities • Demographic change with shifting to high tech industry attracts higher educated immigrants to Massachusetts. • Economy growth with higher living standards provide better fund raising opportunities • Climate change has raise awareness of public on preservation of environment • Internet provides an excellent marketing tool to communicate with member. • Government policies in protecting wildlife provide more chances for land preservation for MAS.

SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS – INTERNAL ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS

-- SWOT and TOWS Analysis -Threats • Change in kids behavior: involve in computer game and soccer. • Only 5 main sanctuaries for 70% of all visitations. • Loss of habitat to development and disruption of natural ecological cycles through human activities

CHARACTERS •Susannah Caffry  (New director marketing

                                  communication) •Steve Solomon •Alfred Chandler      (Board member) •Laura Johnson         (President)

MARKETING AND  COMMUNICATION

INTRODUCTION OF CAFFERY Caffery developed interest in working for non profit sector after she went for a canoeing trip with Outward Bound  Later she ed Outward Bound as vice president  After the previous director left Caffery was recruited by Steve Solomen for newly defined position of director of marketing communication  Caffery was attracted to MAS because of its commitment to marketing among the leadership 

PROBLEMS IDENTIFIED BY CAFFERY After gathering information about how people on staff, board and council felt about marketing related issues, Caffery found: Many said; “We don’t like the M-word!” They had widely divergent views:  Those who loved Sanctuary magazine because the saw it as “pure” and free from overt marketing.  Those who regarded it as “elitist” and “arrogant” Similar variations were found for newsletters and website

Conflicting opinions concerning objectives of Mass Audubon’s different communication activities  No consensus at all as to what was the purpose of Sanctuary magazine  Annual report was not meeting the need of development office 

OVERALL OBJECTIVE IDENTIFIED  BY CAFFERY 

Bringing together communication activities without undermining the strengths of the organization

COMMUNICATION  STRATEGY TASK FORCE

Absence of explicit strategy prior to Solomon’s arrival  Alfred Chandler started Sanctuary magazine as an independent journal  It has articles about Society’s mission as opposed to stories about Mass Audubon 

In-house publishing efforts produced books and field guides  Staff wrote press releases  Public relations efforts by development office  Chandler promoted need for integrated communication strategy  Board approved creation of communication strategy task force to work with a consulting firm and MAS staff 

PURPOSE OF COMMUNICATION  STRATEGY TASK FORCE Oversee a review  Analysis of current external communication activities  Preparation of communication plan  Its scope extended to hip, education, public relations, marketing and publications 

FOCUS AND OBJECTIVES

Develop communication strategy for existing hip to increase member value  Reinforce MAS’s role and positioning as the leader  Establishing a clear image for Society  Communicate more cost-effectively 

MEMBER SURVEY

REASONS FOR CONDUCTING SURVEY To identify channels for future communications  To understand how perceive MAS  To determine difference between demographic groups 

were segmented according to the reason for ing Audubon i. Believe in the organization and mission ii. To protect the environment iii. To visit the sanctuaries 

QUESTIONNAIRE Questionnaire was mailed to 62,000  More than 8000 completed them  4,448 questionnaires were viewed as more than enough responses for proposed statistical analysis 

RESULT OF SURVEY  As compared to the first two groups ,those who ed primarily to visit the sanctuaries tended to be younger and had children under 18.  Over 90% visited a sanctuary within the past year , compared to about three-fourths of those in other segments 

THANK YOU!