BEST PIVOT CAMPAIGN OR INITIATIVE

The Smith Family Sponsored Student Birthday Reminders

Team

Sophie Kingsford-Smith

Suzanne Hilellis

Samantha Jovceski

Juan Ordenes

Kelly Slater

Krithika Muruganantham

Correspondence between sponsors and their students is one of the most important retention factors at The Smith Family. Sponsors who communicate regularly with their students are retained nearly three times higher than those who do not.

Finalist

To encourage correspondence, they provide Sponsored Student Birthday Reminders. Typically, three months before the student’s birthday, sponsors receive a reminder via email of this milestone. It directs sponsors to a digital personalised form (PURL) where sponsors can send a message and/or select a gift voucher for the student. If sponsors opt out of email communication or haven’t responded, a reminder is sent via post. They received 11,743 responses via post, making up 39% of total responses.

Sponsored by:

However, the internal KPI of 28 days from the receipt of correspondence to its dispatch to students was not being met due to the reduction of staff and volunteers in the office. This caused much disappointment among sponsors and students as often messages/ gifts weren’t received in time for their birthday. In response, they decided to digitise the process at every step to minimise the impact of this disruption - . : outbound email and mail reminders to sponsors, sending onto students, and inbound responses from students. This resulted in clearing of the the backlog and stayed caught up from March onwards and maintaining the sponsor retention rate year on year.