Customer story: The Rainforest Foundation18 July 2005
The Rainforest Foundation is a UK charity set up 15 years ago to help the traditional inhabitants of the world's rainforests to protect their homes and livelihoods. According to the organisation's fundraising manager, Rob Daly, broadband has revolutionised the way they operate:
"Over the last five years we have wanted to use the Rainforest Foundation website as our main channel for marketing and communications. When we found that we couldn't realise our vision with a dial-up connection we switched to broadband and since then, the change has been dramatic."
"By using the Internet for marketing and communications, we are able to reduce paper consumption, an obvious choice given the nature of our work."
"The reduced costs are helping us improve our communication and interaction with supporters. For example, where previously, the cost of printing and posting our newsletter prohibited it to being a bi-yearly publication - we now send out a quarterly eNewsletter at one tenth the cost."
"Fundraising has become easier and more efficient, as people can donate via direct debits on our site."
"Being online has empowered our supporters. 95 per cent of people register online for our annual 10k race, reducing our administration costs. Runners can even set up a personal online sponsorship page, email it to friends and family who in turn donate online."
"Finally, the Internet has helped us innovate ways of marketing. For example, our most recent campaign involved a complex issue - the planned industrial logging of the rainforest in the Congo - but we were able to turn it around by developing an online game to raise awareness."
"We were able to distribute Congo Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Bark at zero cost by promoting it on discussion forums, through partner organisations, games and entertainment sites, as well as online and print press. Since then, the game has been featured on websites in Holland, Greece, Israel and the USA. Over 300,000 people have played it since its launch in November 2004, increasing traffic to our website ten-fold."
"In the past reaching such a wide audience would have been prohibitive and costly for a small organisation like the Rainforest Foundation but the Internet has opened up a whole new world of opportunities to us!"
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