The mailing of “discovery boxes” prompted generous donations.

Who’s that rustling in the box?

Nature Reserve and Wildlife Park Goldau is home to mainly native and European animals. Working with Swiss Post, the park sent a creative donation mailing to raise money for nocturnal facilities for small mammals, and the response exceeded all expectations.

Common, edible and garden dormice are rarely seen in the wild. Not only because these small mammals are nocturnal and shy, but also because they are losing more and more of their habitats. Nature Reserve and Wildlife Park Goldau wants to build new, accessible facilities for them, co-financed by donations which the park depends on, as it does not receive regular public funding.

Mailing for discoverers

Every year around Epiphany, the park sends out a donation mailing. To generate donations for the construction of the nocturnal facilities, the zoo focused on an informative and particularly creative mailing in January 2019. A “discovery box” was sent out. “Who’s that rustling in the box?” asked a postcard enclosed in the package, which contained chocolate mice hiding in the straw. The challenge was for the recipient to find them and the project description on the bottom of the box, with a torch that was also enclosed. A cover letter with a payment slip appealed specifically to the target group, which included donors who had supported the park with 5,000 francs or more the previous year, patrons, and media and cooperation partners. “We developed the concept ourselves and did everything in-house, up to and including the packaging – to get the most out of our budget,” says Condi Scherrer, head of fundraising operations at the park. For the mailing, the park relied on Swiss Post, which delivered the 218 discovery boxes on time on 6 January.

High response rate and generous donations

Condi Scherrer is very satisfied with the results of the campaign: “We are happy to have reached our goal of 35,000 francs. We also received a lot of positive feedback describing the mailing as clever, funny and surprising.”

Visitors to the nature reserve and wildlife park can celebrate, too: thanks to the generous donors, the foundations for the funding have been laid. The park is now working on raising the remaining funds. And then they’ll start building.

PostMail wins silver

On the first attempt, PostMail has won the EFQM Global Excellence Silver Award – a prominent international award for corporate excellence. Nine assessors from the EFQM organization spent five days putting PostMail under the microscope. Over 200 employees were surveyed in around 50 interviews, locations were inspected and processes were screened on-site in their entirety.