Services Marketing

Massachusetts Audubon Society

Case Study

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

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 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 members.
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 members, we
care for 34,000 acres of conservation land, provide educational
programs for 225,000 children and adults annually, and 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 registered 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
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 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, Americas 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
Membership grew from 26,600 to 67,000 in 1998 while
area of land protected from 11,600 to 28,000 acres

,
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 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?
,

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 The Resources Division

The organization structure consisted of 4 functional

areas, each of which was each headed by a vice
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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.
There were five scientists
employed under this
division. 10
 MASs operating Revenue
increased 458% within 21 years

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 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
Harvards Graduate School of Design.
The director of Membership section,
JanONeil has 12 years experience with
New Boston Group, a telemarketing firm
that made fundraising calls for nonprofits,
many of them in the environmental area.
2 years working experience in detailed
analytical studies for nonprofit clients.

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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.

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 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 members informed and
involved about the usage of
donations.
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. 14
 The director found insufficient
information in the database to
enable for creating detailed profiles
of the membership.
Re-validated membership strategy,
invested new membership and
development software, etc.
The number of membership was
65,372 in 2001.
About 70% of members renewed at
the same rate, 20% upgraded, and
10% downgraded. 15
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 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
members to involve on scheduling,
pricing, and service features.
Worked in aligning the objectives of
MASs 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.
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 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..
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
members would renew their membership but
it was 35% only
At renewal time, members were encouraged
to migrate to higher levels of membership:
Supporting ($60), Defender ($75), Donor
($100), Protector ($150), Sponsor ($250),
Patron ($500) and leadership friend ($1250)
Saturday, October 7, 2017 19
 Membership
Insufficient information in the database to create profiles
of the members
Initial task was to find ways to validate which
membership strategies worked and which did not.
$4,00,000 were being invested in new membership
software
Between 1997-1999, MAS membership had surged from
54,400 to 67,400 which included a $400,000 advertising
campaign

Saturday, October 7, 2017 20

 Membership, cont..
o Members declined to 65,000
o Society faced a churn of 20% each year
o Membership cost was $47, initially it was $25 only
o 45% of the members were recruited at the
sanctuaries and 42% through direct mail solicitation
o Admission charges to the sanctuaries for non-
members 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 passionate staff
Higher renewal rate for new members compare to other
organization.
Competent and experienced management team.
High quality of education program.
Have large area of sanctuaries across Massachusetts.
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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 members
informed the usage of the donations.
MAS members 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.

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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.
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SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS INTERNAL ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS
-- SWOT and TOWS Analysis --

Threats

Change in kids behavior: involve in computer game and

soccer.
Only 5 main sanctuaries account for 70% of all visitations.
Loss of habitat to development and disruption of natural
ecological cycles through human activities

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