The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in South Africa has teamed up with digital media consultancy Hoorah, to launch an exclusive technical apparel range, which aims to strengthen the relationship between the NGO and its supporters.
The first item in the range, called “The Black Leopard”, is an outdoor fleece jacket available in men’s, women’s, and children’s sizes.
Made in a Cape Town factory which employs 200 people and meets the highest sustainable manufacturing standards, The Black Leopard is available exclusively through WWF SA’s online store. The store itself has been completely built from the ground up to the world class standards contemporary consumers expect from an ecommerce offering.
According to Koogan Pillay, who heads up WWF SA’s operational fundraising, the technical apparel range represents a “new way to engage with donors”.
“It’s no longer about shaking a tin on the street,” he says. “We have to provide supporters with value for their money”.
Realising this, the WWF turned to Hoorah. The data-driven creative consultancy realised that the WWF’s best hope was to take a Silicon Valley-style startup approach to meeting the wants and needs of its donors. That meant starting with the limited Black Leopard range, with the option to scale — both in terms of products and distribution — as necessary.
“An organisation like the WWF relies on goodwill,” says Hoorah CSO and co-founder Jay Thomson. “We realised we could help build on that goodwill with a new kind of inclusive product structure”.
The startup approach also means WWF SA has complete control of the supply chain, allowing it to walk the talk when it comes to environmental sustainability.
Previously, when it wanted to sell apparel it had to rely on licensing deals with companies whose environmental credibility they could not be sure of.
Because WWF SA partnered with a data-driven consultancy like Hoorah in building its new online offering, it also stands to position itself as a conduit for similar initiatives from across the globe.
“An organisation like the WWF, sits on an incredible data repository in the form of its donors,” says Thomson. “By combining that data with a high-quality, sustainably made product, it stands to completely change the way NGOs view fundraising”.
For Pillay, “Black Leopard” represents the start of something big. He is under no illusions, however, about the work that needs to be put into the overall project.
“We have big expectations and big dreams, but we also have the motivation to match,” he says.
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