A season to save lives
The RSPCA is one of the UK’s most recognised animal welfare charities, founded in 1824 and reliant on voluntary donations to fund its £140 million annual running costs. Its Christmas appeal is particularly critical, supporting over a million calls, 100,000 rescues, and the care of tens of thousands of animals each year. For the 2024 campaign, they wanted to maximise income while reducing waste. They were already committed to sustainable practices with recyclable materials and carbon balancing, but they wanted to go further – reducing unnecessary door drops and ensuring their appeals reached people most likely to respond.
Cutting waste, not connections
To achieve this, we refined the RSPCA’s traditional door drop model with Herdify, an AI-driven targeting tool that detects communities where real-world word-of-mouth about animal welfare is strongest. Starting with RSPCA’s donor data, enriched with Mosaic and TGI insights, we ranked postal sectors by alignment with known supporter profiles. Herdify then added a behavioural layer, flagging areas with high social influence. By overlaying these models, we selected zones with the greatest fundraising potential and cut out lower-scoring ones. The creative focused on heartfelt Christmas rescue stories, combining urgency and compassion. Delivered into communities already primed by conversation, the message was more likely to resonate. An insert campaign extended the reach, ensuring consistency across channels and maximising cost-effectiveness.
Decreasing door drops, increasing income
The campaign outperformed expectations, proving that smarter targeting can drive both efficiency and sustainability. High-scoring areas delivered stronger response rates, higher average donations, and a lower cost per donor. The campaign generated nearly £320,000 in income from 8,381 door drop donations, while printing 200,000 fewer door drops than in 2023. Alongside immediate ROI, the approach provided valuable insight to guide future appeals. For RSPCA, this was a step forward in balancing fundraising effectiveness with environmental responsibility — demonstrating that reducing waste can go hand in hand with increasing income and supporter engagement.
