Case Study: Morton Arboretum
“We need a strategy to reengage our long-term, high-level supporters”
The Challenge
The Morton Arboretum wanted to broaden its reach and better understand how to cultivate supporters and volunteers with a deeper connection to its mission of championing trees. Many departments worked with volunteers who lived and breathed the kind of long-term and meaningful engagement the Arboretum wanted to see. Yet, they did not have a holistic strategy for identifying what messaging or approaches were working and how they could coordinate their efforts to increase engagement and grow their following of dedicated supporters.
The Approach
teenyBIG conducted active listening interviews with a wide range of volunteers, supporters, and advocates to better understand people’s motivation for giving back to and deepening their engagement with the Arboretum. Emily then integrated these insights with a multi-department workshop that created new engagement ideas with individual volunteer leaders.
What We Accomplished
• Developed representative descriptions of ideal audience members to guide high-level engagement and helped the team understand and identify them
• Created engagement tools to help leaders learn what motivates those they’re working with and how to guide them to engage at a deeper level
“Two years later, we are still referencing what we learned about engaging our audience from teenyBIG’s work - it’s given us a deeper understanding of them, more so than we’ve ever gotten from surveys and focus groups.”
- Carissa Dougherty, Head of Knowledge Management
