The Question

As one of the UK's biggest wildlife and nature conservation charities, how can they optimise their family membership and attract new members?

With no prior research with families, the client needed to

• Explore attitudes toward nature and wildlife among parents and children.
• Identify barriers to participation and membership uptake.
• Provide actionable insights to boost engagement and uptake amongst families.

The Approach

A combined qual and quant approach to 1) delve into family life and interactions with charities, 2) give confidence in numbers and test potential membership benefits.

• Digital ethnography with 32 x families to understand family life, interactions with nature and wildlife, brand and competitor perceptions and membership priorities. A review of current membership publications was also conducted.
• Online Surveys with current family members and prospective family members to further understand attitudes, behaviours, priorities, and appeal, and compare across member status and child age.
  • MaxDiff analysis was included to identify what families really want from a nature and wildlife charity membership.

• Stakeholder workshop to present the findings, and encourage thoughts and discussion to ensure the research was digested, impactful and drives action.

The Outcome

Extensive findings across age group and member status analysed into key themes with actionable insights across stakeholder teams. Differences between age groups were pulled out and opportunities for tailoring to different ages were identified.

The findings empowered stakeholders to question the current charity brand positioning and think about how it can be framed to be more relevant to families - with actions including comms, messaging and the membership offering.