Most nonprofits have a welcome series. A few emails after the first gift, then into the regular stream.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) had one too: three emails over three months, with barely any personalization. 

But their animal sponsorship packages, the organization’s biggest fundraising product at $27 million annually, had a retention problem.

New supporters were signing up and then canceling shortly after. 

So WWF decided to revamp its entire approach.

The breakthrough
Working with Euler, WWF extended its dedicated onboarding journey from 3 stages to 15, with personalized emails running alongside its regular email program.

What started as a welcome series rebuild turned into something bigger: a full first-year retention journey that handles onboarding, engagement, renewals, and cancellation saves in one sequence.

Here’s what changed:

Every email learned something. The team added polls and quizzes to capture what supporters actually cared about, then fed those preferences back into future sends.

A tiger adopter might hear about snow leopards. A polar bear sponsor might get Arctic conservation updates.

Renewals became part of the journey. Some of WWF’s adopters pay for a full year upfront and need to actively renew when it expires. 

Previously, WWF sent renewal prompts to only a subset of those supporters at three fixed points per year.

The new journey sends reminders daily, timed to each supporter’s adoption date. 

That one change increased the number of supporters reached with a renewal prompt by 35%, across email and direct mail.

Giving supporters options before cancellation. Monthly direct debit supporters were the ones leaving early on. 

When someone moved to cancel, the journey offered alternatives: lowering their monthly amount or pausing the gift.

If they still wanted to leave, the system prompted them to share their reason, and that information was analyzed regularly.

The results: renewal rates jumped from 3% to 10%, the program saved $40,000 in income from reduced cancellations, and generated $44,000 from additional donations and renewals.

How to push your own journey further
If you already have a welcome series running, the question is whether it could do more than welcome.

Extend the timeline. Most welcome sequences wrap up in a few weeks. WWF’s results suggest the real retention value comes from staying present across the full first year alongside regular broadcast emails.

Collect preferences during the journey. Polls and quizzes give you data you can feed back into the sequence so each subsequent email feels more personal.

Automate your renewal timing. If you’re sending renewal prompts at fixed points on the calendar, you’re creating bottlenecks for your team and missing supporters who fall between the cracks. Triggering reminders based on each supporter’s sign-up date spreads the work out and reaches more people.

Offer alternatives before a full cancellation. A pause or reduced amount can meaningfully shift your retention numbers.

The bottom line
WWF set out to fix a welcome series and ended up building a first-year retention program. 

That shift — from a few onboarding emails to a dedicated journey running alongside the regular stream — is where the gains came from.

Better subscribers stick around longer. And Civic Shout helps you acquire them.

Industry events

Check our events list for more or reply to this email to submit one for consideration.

Quick hits

  • A new GivingTuesday/GoFundMe study found that Gen Z gives at higher rates than older generations, with 71% having donated in some form. 

  • On the latest episode of the Hello Merge Tag podcast, progressive strategist Murshed Zaheed makes the case that Democratic email lost its soul when it stopped being a community tool and became a fundraising ATM. 

  • Advocates for Trans Equality is hiring a Director of Marketing to lead brand strategy and digital campaigns, including email. Remote, $135-145K.

‘Til next time!
Sara

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