The Brooke

Welcome Process

We work with charities who struggle with donor retention and keeping attrition rates of new supporters low.

One of our current clients is The Brooke. They found that attrition for their DRTV recruits was higher than the recruits from traditional recruitment methods such as Inserts, Press and DM.

We reviewed the welcome programme results for all new supporters and concluded that a single offline traditional welcome programme for new supporters – despite their recruitment method – was not working. A welcome programme for the supporters who were recruited via non-traditional means e.g. DRTV, with its varying response channels – such as online, text and phone – needed to be developed to acknowledge the way in which these supporters had begun their relationship with the Brooke. Mail packs were not working for these supporters, they needed to be engaged by different channels.

• As a result of this review Whitewater has since developed a mixed channel welcome programme for Brooke DRTV recruits. They now have a distinct welcome programme that gives supporters a mix of phone, Email, mail and text communications in their first twelve months as a supporter of the Brooke.
• Our communications now acknowledge the way in which supporters wish to engage with the Brooke, and we expect this to result in a decline in attrition from these supporters.