At Woodford Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge, dedicated caretakers look after and rehabilitate your favorite woodland creatures, from baby squirrels to majestic owls. As a 171-acre wildlife refuge, rehabilitation hospital, and nature center, it takes awareness, education, and engaged supporters to maintain the funds and supplies needed to support these animals.
Contact List Growth YOY
+ 29.5%
12-month ROI
197%
Feature they can’t live without: Shopify and Vimeo Integrations
“Every species has a role in our environment and our ecosystem. And we want to make sure that we’re continuing that and helping,” said Lisa Franco, Woodford Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge Director of Development.
Founded in 1957 by Jim and Betty Woodford, Cedar Run has grown from a passion project to a full-time endeavor. As they have expanded, so have their needs. While they remain a vital force on all matters related to wildlife and habitat preservation, Cedar Run faces the challenges of connecting with their supporters, inspiring their community to take action, and securing the proper funding to protect their local wildlife. That is when they turned to Constant Contact for help.
“We are currently servicing over 6,000 animals — that’s a lot of mouths to feed. We’re a free resource, you do not have to pay us in order to drop off an animal. We accept donations, but we are 100% free,” explains Lisa. “Our marketing is really focused on making sure the community knows we’re here and that we’re a resource.”
Animals treated at Woodford Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge. Source
Informing and educating with email and social media marketing
Besides working to spread the word about their organization within their local community, Cedar Run is also busy raising money for special projects, asking for item donations to stock their rehabilitation hospital with much-needed supplies, running camps, and hosting weddings.
To connect with their community and promote the programs they offer, Cedar Run uses a mix of email marketing and social media. “I try to do at least 2 to 3 emails a week,” explains Lisa. “We’ll also do some segmented emails and social media in addition to regular donor relations and talking to people about the project.”
They have several initiatives supported by these strategies: event communications, donation requests, awareness for their educational programs and camps, updates on the animals in their care, and their “Raised by Finder” series, which is designed to educate their audience on why people shouldn’t try to rehabilitate wildlife on their own.
By consistently using both social media and email marketing to educate and engage their audience, Cedar Run has successfully funded and supported many projects, programs, and supply requests. Most recently, they were able to raise over $70,000 to fund a new 1,100-square-foot enclosure for their wildlife ambassador, Ember the fox. “We started in May and we were fully funded by the end of November.”
Additionally, they turned their first-ever plant sale into a major success, bringing in about $12,000 in a few days. This was achieved by offering a presale via email and following up with reminders via social media and email, ensuring they would have a strong turnout for their in-person event.
Utilizing AI, Canva, and Templates for a seamless creation process
Cedar Run uses AI to quickly generate engaging and relevant content for email and social media. “I like using AI when I already have an idea. I already know what I need, and then AI is just kind of like my helper, like my sidekick.”
Their cadence of monthly programs often results in similar or repetitive email copy — so AI helps them think outside the box. “There’s only so many ways I can think of talking about this program. It’s not like it’s a different theme, it’s generally the same program. I love using AI for that — how can I talk about this differently?” In addition to generating content, they also use AI to repurpose and condense copy for SMS text message campaigns.
Their integration with Canva and Vimeo further enhances their creation process, allowing them to easily incorporate their imagery and videos directly into their emails. This coupled with the templates in Constant Contact means they can craft high-quality emails quickly.
“People who are on my team who don’t have a design background can just go in and add in all their information, they don’t have to build an email from scratch. And I also didn’t take 10 hours building a template for them — I took maybe 5 minutes. That’s my favorite thing about Constant Contact.”
Amplifying donations with Shopify and text message marketing
By integrating Shopify with Constant Contact, Cedar Run makes it easy for subscribers to show their support by purchasing from their nature center or making a direct donation. This capability has allowed Cedar Run to generate an incredible average donation of more than $330 per email for their fundraising drives and campaigns. In addition, by simply including a donation link in their regular communications without a specific campaign or drive, they have managed to capture an average donation of $114.38 per email.
“We get so many more donations from our emails than we ever thought we could.”
To further their fundraising efforts, Cedar Run has also begun to use SMS text message marketing to solicit donations and raise awareness of their campaigns. They use text messages to reach their supporters directly on their phones, allowing them to keep their community informed about urgent funding needs, upcoming events, and specific donation asks.
“Just texting ‘You have until midnight’ was helpful. I did that this year and I do feel that was really helpful. We saw donations trickling in right before midnight.”
Consistently reaching goals
It wasn’t long until they started to see success with their email marketing efforts specifically with their yearly formula fundraiser. Previously, Cedar Run used to heavily rely on mailers and even Facebook to encourage donations.
“We noticed that more people aren’t donating through Facebook. So we decided to make it an email campaign,” said Lisa.
During the campaign, Lisa sent out an email two times a week. Sometimes the emails would directly ask for a donation, while other times she would send educational emails to show how the formula works. It wasn’t long before she began to see her subscribers engage with her emails — she was receiving questions about what the animals were eating and where the money was going. Then, donations started to consistently come in.
“We saw a majority of our donations for the formula coming through clicks from our Constant Contact emails to our donation page. We were able to hit our goal a few days before the fundraiser ended. And last year we didn’t even hit our goal— we were nowhere near.”
Additionally, their email marketing campaigns are used to regularly promote their monthly programs and events. By sending email reminders to their list, they are able to see an almost immediate increase in registrations. “We could have no sign-ups and I send out an email and within a day they’re booked.”
Tapping into the wedding market
Cedar Run has relied on the generosity of individual donors, with 70% of their funding coming from these contributions. While this model has sustained their work, Cedar Run saw a chance to tap into an additional revenue stream by offering wedding services. While they had always offered weddings, it wasn’t until this past year that they decided to promote them.
“[People] are getting married and wanting to move towards an outdoor wedding or something that goes to a really good cause,” said Lisa. “That has been really cool for us because we’re able to make a decent amount of money, almost what we could make with our biggest fundraiser of the year, by just doing 10 weddings on site.”
Weddings at Woodford Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge. Source
However, it soon became apparent that appealing to this new audience required specific outreach and content. This meant Cedar Run had to think of new ways to attract and engage them. Cedar Run now advertises on websites like The Knot, targeting couples who are looking for unique, nature-inspired venues that contribute to a good cause. They then take all the leads they receive from their advertisements and place them in a specific list within their Constant Contact account. By segmenting these leads, they are able to nurture relationships with potential couples through tailored email campaigns and exclusive offers.
Conservation success
Integrating Shopify for donations, utilizing SMS text message marketing for real-time outreach, and tapping into the wedding market have all boosted Cedar Run’s fundraising capabilities and expanded their reach.
By embracing a multichannel marketing approach, Cedar Run has transformed their engagement with supporters and driven their mission forward. Leveraging the tools from Constant Contact has continued to help them inform, inspire, and engage their community, successfully meeting their donation goals and ensuring ongoing support for their essential work in wildlife conservation.
Anatomy of a Cedar Run Email
Here is what makes Cedar Run’s email campaigns shine. By integrating some of these elements into your emails, you can also create powerful communications that encourage your audience to take action.
- Video embed
Cedar Run includes an embedded video of their animal patients using the Vimeo integration. Including videos help to captivate their audience by delivering their message in an engaging and dynamic way. - Passive donation buttons
A strategically placed donation button encourages Cedar Run’s subscribers to give without interrupting the flow of their content. - Engaging content
Cedar Run’s content resonates with their audience, drawing them in with fun facts, compelling patient stories, useful information, and more. - Donation impact
Showing how their subscribers’ donations can make a difference is central to building trust with their subscribers and encouraging them to support their cause. When people see the impact of their donations, they are more likely to give. - Social media links
Including social media links encourages their audience to stay connected with them across multiple locations. This helps them to engage with supporters outside of their emails.
