Wilberforce Trust

Managed Communications Charity Case Study

Charity engages with audience through secure, effective postal mailings with the support of UK leading communication specialist.

Case Study CFH Wilberforce Trust
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Annual mailings
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26 page documents
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Secure mailings
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Effective partnership
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Cost savings
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Expert support
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CFH Managed
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Increased engagement

The Brief

Starting in 1833, Wilberforce Trust is the oldest charity based in York and is dedicated to supporting people with sight loss. Providing a completely holistic set of services for all age ranges, including supported living and sensory classes, the charity is passionate in integrating people with sight impediments into society so that they can live an independent, successful life with a series of inclusive projects.

Wilberforce Trust continuously strive to build for the future and transform and improve the times we live in, to support all individuals of society.

Traditionally, Wilberforce Trust managed their communications in-house, with a range of postal and digital communications being sent to support their audience requirements.

Postal communications remain a vital channel for the organisation, as digital channels are not the preferred communication stream for

all of their audience. The process for postal communications included the printing, enclosing and dispatching of over 10,000 documents, by a team of dedicated volunteers and employees.

Whilst the volunteers enjoyed helping Wilberforce Trust with this vital process to ensure their audience were kept up to date, the process was extremely manual and often took a day to complete; but this wasn’t the main challenge.

Case Study Logo Wilberforce Trust Right

THE SOLUTION

During the early parts of the first national Covid-19 lockdown, in addition to moving offices, Head of Development, Jane Carter, was challenged with sourcing an alternative way of managing postal communications, as their current solution was no longer viable for the team.

The Trust required a solution that was secure, easy to manage and drove engagement, whilst being cost effective and managing a range of printed output. And this is where CFH Docmail Limited could help.

Reaching out on LinkedIn, Shelley Hawkins, Business Development Manager of CFH Docmail Limited (CFH), got in touch with the Wilberforce Project Management Team and discussed how CFH could support meeting their posted communication requirements.

After being put in contact with Jane and reviewing the communication requirements together, Wilberforce Trust, adopted a bespoke managed service solution, which provided the Trust with a dedicated account management, Karen Mason, to oversee their communications as well as a flexible communication solution that was time sensitive, managed bulk communications and provided a range of postal outputs including letters, newsletters and postcards.

By the two organisations working together and through strong communication, Wilberforce managed to adopt the solution within a few weeks and began their journey with CFH, by sending a newsletter round up to their end audience.

The process

Sending mailings through CFH is simple. The two organisations started by agreeing deadlines and the output style, followed by Wilberforce Trust securely sending the audience data and artwork through a SFTP connection (recommended by CFH) and CFH pulling together a print file proof, that was digitally supplied for approval. Once the proofs are approved CFH then managed the printing, enclosing and dispatching of the postal communications. The process from start to finish, was managed in less than a month and organised at CFH’s site based in Slough.

Since partnering with CFH, the Trust has sent out 3 annual newsletter mailings, ranging from 6 to 26 pages as well as enclosing a pre-paid postcard into their latest addition to encourage feedback to the organisation. Adopting the managed service solution allows the communications to stay on brand, drive responses through reinforced messages and additional inserts, whilst saving volunteer time, which can be now spent on other fundraising and charitable activities.

In addition, extra copies of these mailings are sent to Jane so that they can used as display pieces in their new offices and at events that they hold.

Karen and Shelley are always on hand to provide support during the creation of any mailings and to ensure that any questions are answered so communications are sent without delay. Through strong communication and flexibility Wilberforce has been able to explore alternative postal touch points and strengthen the relationship between the two organisations, providing scope to the future partnership.

The results

Postal communications remain a vital channel for keeping audiences up to date for the Wilberforce Trust, so that they continue offering communication choice to their end audience. By partnering with CFH, this process has been able to continue, keeping clients up to date and informed as well as driving response rates through a means of call to actions featured in the mailings which may not have occurred otherwise.

It has not only provided the charity with a cost-effective solution when considered against the previous internal process, but a flexible solution that provides mailing alternatives to raise audience interest, that is easy to manage and runs without delays.

The complete end-to-end solution means that the Trust has one less thing to worry about as they know that CFH and their dedicated account manager will ensure their communications are securely printed and dispatched when required.

The process is easy to manage and even easier to execute, with Wilberforce Trusting finding a supplier that they know they can grow with.

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