the challenge

Delivering more net income from a mature but stagnating appeals program.

how we tackled it

Royal Flying Doctor Service Queensland (RFDS) is an iconic Aussie organisation, providing incredible, around-the-clock healthcare to Queenslanders in need.

There was a longstanding direct mail program in place, but growth was non-existent and RFDS desperately needed more income to fund its vital service.

Since 2013, RFDS has worked in partnership with flat earth direct to change the approach to the direct mail program completely—moving away from a newsletter style approach to an authentic, story-driven program. The very first appeal was a huge success—increasing net income from the previous year by more than 50 per cent.

Keys to success have been the focus on articulating to donors a clear, compelling need for funding, emotional case study stories, long personal letters, touching lifts, personalised asks, rigorous targeting, multiple communication touchpoints that includes email and SMS, as well as huge effort to bring high value donors much closer to RFDS’ work.

The return from investing in engaging high value appeal donors was immediate. Over the years, high value treatment has included invites to special donor events to see the planes and meet the amazing medical teams, hyper-personalised packs, personal videos from the CEO, unique outer envelopes (such as boxes and tubes) and special gifts that relate to the case study or case for support.

the result

In 2013, RFDS’ net contribution to the appeal program was just under $500k per year. Fast forward to 2020, and that figure is now a staggering $1.5M annually—over a million dollars in net income growth.

A massive driver of RFDS’ success has been the high value activity which has grown from around 15 per cent of overall appeal income in 2014 to around 30-40 per cent in 2019.

The 2019 Tax Appeal was also the biggest appeal in RFDS’ history, grossing $875k. Back in 2012 it generated just $221k gross.