Imagine a world where critical decisions made to help people and nature are driven by timely, reliable data. Where conservation projects are backed by science and analytics. Where relationships with donors are personalized and nurtured for maximum impact, ensuring that every contribution makes a difference.

This is the reality for World Wildlife Fund (WWF-US), where cutting-edge technology and nature converge to create a more sustainable future.

WWF is one of the world’s leading conservation organizations, collaborating with local and global partners in nearly 100 countries. The nonprofit focuses on six key areas: forests, oceans, freshwater, wildlife, food and climate.

Driven by its mission to foster a world where people and nature thrive, WWF has modernized its approach to donor outreach and engagement by using SAS Customer Intelligence 360 and SAS Viya. With these solutions in place, WWF can personalize donor experiences across various channels, leading to increased response rates and funding for vital conservation projects.

Personalized experiences for better results

Understanding donor behavior is key to meeting WWF’s conservation goals.

“A big goal we have is personalizing the donor experience,” says Lucas Kelly, Senior Data Scientist at WWF. “SAS Customer Intelligence 360 helps us identify the areas in which a donor is most interested in exploring. For example, if we know someone is very interested in oceans and our work in that area, we can personalize their experience when they return to our website by showing them more content relevant to ocean conservation.”

SAS Customer Intelligence 360 also enables WWF to test new creatives, conduct A/B tests, and employ traditional marketing tactics effectively and efficiently. The nonprofit can create donor lifetime value models, predicting future giving and optimizing outreach strategies. By integrating contact and response data from direct mail, web, social media, email and other channels, WWF can better understand individual donor journeys.

Diverse approach, unified mission

With a multifaceted approach to donor engagement, WWF nurtures long-term relationships with legacy supporters through personalized outreach – often via traditional methods like direct mail – while embracing modern, digital-first strategies to connect with emerging supporters.

“It’s a balancing act,” Kelly says. “We need to continue strengthening our relationships with long-time loyal donors who have been supportive of our mission over the years, while also reaching new audiences and younger generations through modern, digital approaches,” Kelly says. “We want to express our mission in a way that attracts attention and secures support, meeting people where they are and how they want to be reached.”

WWF takes pride in building connections with its supporters.

“The fun part is matching a donor to what they are passionate about,” Kelly continues. “We have information on hundreds of species on our website. People have different interests – for someone it might be tigers, for another person it’s amphibians, while the next person is partial to elephants. SAS helps us get closer to understanding what each individual is passionate about, why they joined us and what they’re looking to support.”

Donor retention and re-engagement are also key elements that WWF monitors.

“We track donor retention and the strength of the relationship by how long someone remains an active donor,” Kelly says. “We also track the time in between when a donor leaves the organization and comes back. Understanding how long a donor has lapsed and what we can do to get them to return is crucial.”

Unlocking new benefits with SAS Viya

WWF is in the process of transitioning more of its projects into SAS Viya.

“SAS Viya opens up many new opportunities,” Kelly says. “For example, we had a program that traditionally ran on SAS Enterprise Guide, and now we can modernize it on SAS Viya and more easily integrate Python scripts. Additionally, SAS Viya connects nicely with SAS Customer Intelligence 360. We’re building models in SAS Viya, testing them, running champion/challenger competitions to find the best model, and then quickly integrating it with SAS Customer Intelligence 360 using predefined customer segments or an API connection.”

Enhancing fundraising with machine learning and GenAI

WWF has a long history of interactions with its donors, each with different levels of engagement. For example, someone who donated 20 years ago might be considered lapsed and qualify for a different marketing channel than a recently lapsed donor. Artificial intelligence, particularly machine learning, is particularly helpful in this area.

“We have many machine learning pipelines that build our models and help us identify the right donor for the right piece of communication,” Kelly says. “Our machine learning pipelines allow us to build models that better select the appropriate marketing channel for each person,” Kelly says.

WWF has also begun integrating generative AI into some of its marketing activities.

“WWF is starting to use the GenAI capabilities of SAS Customer Intelligence 360, which are available via the foundational technologies of Amazon Bedrock,” Kelly says. “GenAI is helping us test variation to our messaging, whether it be email, SMS messages or content presented on our website. And our talented team helps ensure the message feels true to the brand millions of people know and love.”

Synthetic data generation ‘supercharges’ innovation

The organization also is an early adopter of SAS Data Maker, a synthetic data engine that creates realistic, privacy-safe data to help organizations innovate without risking exposure of sensitive information. At WWF, SAS Data Maker allows teams to simulate donor behaviors and test engagement strategies in a secure, ethical way.

“SAS Data Maker generates synthetic data and creates segments efficiently, which we then bring into SAS Customer Intelligence 360,” Kelly says. “We’re really excited about these technologies – they’re going to revolutionize the way we work.”

He provides the following example: “While WWF has a wealth of data, there are certain areas where we lack data – and that’s where synthetic data becomes extremely useful. With a new program that doesn't have many donors yet, we can use SAS Data Maker to supplement the dataset, helping our models learn more intuitively on a larger dataset. This capability will supercharge our ability to customize and personalize the donor experience.”

Ongoing collaboration for conservation

Together, WWF and SAS are making a difference, one donor at a time, for a greener and more sustainable future.

“Our partnership with SAS has been instrumental in achieving our fundraising goals,” Kelly concludes. “The insights we gain from SAS empower us to make informed decisions and drive positive change for the planet. It’s an exciting time, and I can’t wait to see what’s next.”

WWF – Facts & Figures

• 5 million supporters worldwide
• 84% of spending is directed to conservation efforts
• 100 countries benefit from WWF’s work

Images courtesy of WWF.

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