How RNIB set up a winning weekly lottery in just 6 months with Woods Valldata
Read on to discover how RNIB and Woods Valldata successfully set up and manage a new weekly lottery to bolster and support RNIB’s growing prize-led fundraising portfolio in this case study!
Who was the charity?
The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) is one of the UK’s leading sight loss charities, as well as the largest community of blind and partially sighted people.
What was the goal of their partnership with woods Valldata?
Modelling and forecasting had shown weekly lottery as a lucrative fundraising addition, enabling cross-sell and re-engagement to RNIB’s current supporter base. The challenge was therefore to set up a charity lottery programme to achieve an ROI in less than two years.
Audit
The first step to help set up a charity lottery for RNIB was to support the business case from the fundraising team for a weekly lottery.
Woods Valldata analysed existing warm data profiles to model the propensity for cross-selling amongst existing supporters and forecast cold acquisition across multiple channels based on extensive weekly lottery management experience.
This helped prove that the weekly lottery was a viable long-term product for RNIB.
Recommendations
The audit enabled us to confidently recommend the following weekly lottery cross-sell and acquisition targets for RNIB:
Cross-sell
Use the combination of direct mail and telemarketing to help cross-sell to existing RNIB supporters across active, lapsing and lapsed segments, focusing on the most attractive (raffle and/or regular giving) segments first.
Cold acquisition
Include weekly lottery as part of cold acquisition of supporters for RNIB after the weekly lottery is launched (the lottery has since become an essential acquisition product for RNIB).
Digital
Introduce digital play at the outset to give RNIB players the widest range of playing opportunities available.
We also recommended that the weekly lottery was launched within six months of the contract being awarded, including operational set-ups involving several different organisational departments.
Implementation
We managed the set-up of the weekly lottery alongside the RNIB fundraising team in just six months working in close partnership with numerous departments, including:
Finance
Woods Valldata worked with the finance team to get everything working as it should in synergy with RNIB’s systems. This included managing the bank account set-up, reporting, processing and submitting BACS, as well as working to meet Gambling Commission requirements.
Fundraising
The project required close collaboration throughout, ensuring supporter touch-points (marketing and administrative communications by email, online, telephone and post) support the ethos of RNIB.
Digital
This included coordinating the weekly lottery design approach across both offline and online media, including direct mail, online and telephone.
Third-Party Suppliers
This involved set-up, data transfer and reporting with the ten third-party agencies who were recruiting new players and sending our team data feeds, so that all weekly lottery sign-ups were imported into the lottery system as soon as possible, and supporters could start playing with no delay.
We also reported fully to RNIB and all other agencies, ensuring that all parties were able to work with up-to-date figures for planning, measurement and forecasting.
Continuous Improvement
We continue to work in partnership with RNIB, systematically improving the weekly lottery product proposition to perform year-on-year. This includes:
- supporting the implementation of additional acquisition channels
- introducing trigger communications to suppress attrition in the programme
- introducing additional player features making the lottery even more interactive and accessible for players
- growing the weekly lottery year on year to one of the best ROI products that RNIB operate
And what was the result?
The weekly lottery systems were set up ready for launch within six months, including all data import and export routines and response and fulfilment requirements for a compliant, smooth-running weekly lottery – leaving RNIB confident in each draw week-in, week-out!
Looking for a partner to help you set up a charity lottery?
We have three exciting lottery programmes to choose from here at Woods Valldata, and years of experience behind us to ensure that your lottery launches successfully – and stays impactful for years to come!
To get started, book your free consultation with a member of our team today.
Whatever your requirements we are sure to be able to help
Services:
What our client had to say
“Woods Valldata and RNIB have worked together for many years, on a number of programmes including our large RNIB raffle and weekly lottery, and we have always been impressed with their consistent ability to deliver. Woods Valldata’s Account Management is very good – they’re friendly, efficient and cope well with a large volume of work.”
Toby Beddoe
Retention Manager, RNIB
