ISPCA
The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was established in 1949 by a group of volunteers from across Ireland, and has grown to become not only one of the largest animal charities in Ireland, but also the umbrella organisation for seventeen affiliated local welfare organisations.
It is a national charity, and its charter is to rescue, rehabilitate and rehome cruelly treated and neglected animals. It promotes animal welfare, prevents cruelty to animals and relieves animal suffering, and it does this through supported legislation and education.
The ISPCA turned to Emarkable for help in modernising and updating its image and its methods of communicating with its various stakeholders, and with those members of the public who might be willing to support it. Seriously under-funded and under-resourced, the ISPCA was in urgent need of help. There was hardly any use of social media or email marketing and there was a lack of clear objectives and strategies. Some of the administration was wasteful of both time and money, and there were difficulties with compliance regulations.
Although the mission statement of the Charity was clear and unambiguous, the planning and organisation of an effective strategy took considerable thought and effort. Stakeholders and supporters needed to be kept informed and engaged if they were to continue in their sponsorship of the ISPCA, which is a part government funded organisation, and could, as such, have been seen as already receiving the funds it needed in order to function.
Clearly, the government funding was not adequate to meet the demands that were being placed upon the Charity, and it, and Emarkable, working together, needed to raise money, and to ensure that the money that was raised was used economically, effectively and efficiently.
Emarkable had to be careful and tactful in its approach, as most of the team in the ISPCA are volunteers rather than paid employees. The legal compliance issues were essential, for example.
After some careful and extensive user experience research, Emarkable redesigned the website and the site architecture to make it simple to search, and to assist the different stakeholders with the information flow. News and outreach, building awareness and engagement was clearly the impetus that would drive the charity from a fund-raising point of view, and so there were email marketing campaigns, newsletters were drawn up, and there was more active use of social media. Search engine optimisation, content marketing and content generation all played a part in the campaigns, and Emarkable also organised some public relations training.
