Case study: the most successful fundraising campaign in ČSO's history – the Střimická výsypka bird park

The success story of the personal fundraiser to buy land for the bird park at Střimická výsypka (the Střimice spoil heap) looks like a miracle worked with a wave of a magic wand, but behind it lies a great deal of systematic work, long-term building of donor trust and a large dose of patience.

It was originally supposed to launch as early as summer 2024, but various administrative delays kept pushing the whole thing back until last Christmas. In the end, the timing landed right in the peak December giving season, and the fundraiser exceeded its goal of CZK 4.8 million in a record 4 weeks. By the end of January, the amount raised had grown by almost another million to CZK 5.7 million. That made the campaign the most successful personal fundraiser not only in the ten-year history of fundraising at the Czech Society for Ornithology (ČSO), but also in the nearly one-hundred-year history since its founding in 1926.

What is behind the success of the Střimická výsypka campaign? There are several factors, and we will go through them one by one in an interview with Lucie Hošková, who has led fundraising at ČSO since its very beginnings. We would like to thank Lucie for the openness and willingness with which she shares her know-how and specific figures from the campaign with us.

So let's get straight to it. What do you think was the main reason behind the success of the Střimická campaign?
From the launch on 27 November 2024 until the end of the year, a team of 1.5 FTE worked with donors. As for how the fundraiser managed to be such a success with donors, I would answer in a few points:

• Thanks to excellent preparation and cooperation between us in fundraising (special thanks here go to my colleague Lucka Vacková, who led the whole campaign) and our expert colleagues from the bird parks program.

• Thanks to clear and understandable communication with donors.

• Thanks to how attractive the topic is for donors - buying land into ČSO ownership and establishing new bird parks is simply what interests donors most out of everything we do. They want to be part of “restoring” the landscape. It makes sense to them. And above all, they already have experience with us from the previous six bird parks. They know we genuinely care about restoring nature; after all, the Josefovské louky meadows near Jaroměř have been up and running for 17 years now.

• Donors were also captivated by the size of the land being purchased (251 ha of contiguous area), which is a sufficiently crazy plan: buying almost the entire spoil heap and then restoring the landscape and nature in the post-mining land of northern Bohemia devastated by humans. I have to add here that we of course did not buy the spoil heap with donor money alone; we used it to co-finance a project under the Just Transition Operational Programme. The whole purchase cost CZK 29.5 million. But that too may have appealed to donors: that we are able to secure a project of this size and that their donations can help make it happen.

• This motto probably worked too: “The bird park will forever keep the memory of the vanished village of Střimice alive in its name.” We also tracked down historical photos of the vanished Střimice and information about it. Did you know, for example, that one of the most famous Czech footballers, Josef Masopust, was born there?

• We also chose the hoopoe as the park's icon; people absolutely love it, and it worked really well…

• We always communicate our successes and progress (not only) in the bird parks to donors clearly and regularly.

• Last but not least, we had a clear goal and a clear deadline. And I am not just talking about this campaign - ČSO has a long-term Bird Park Development Strategy, so people know our long-term goal (to have at least 1 functioning bird park of at least 50 ha in every region by 2042).

Czech Society for Ornithology - Eurasian hoopoe

And what communication did you run for the campaign? Could you be a bit more specific?
The campaign was built primarily on e-mail communication, but with some major donors, where we suspected they might want to give larger amounts, we either met in person or spoke on the phone.

During the campaign, we sent out an e-mail mailing once a week. A total of 6 e-mails and one teaser went out, 4 of them before Christmas.

We try to make the e-mails interesting; we use attractive photos of the landscape and, of course, of birds. Important information is repeated, but we always add something new (history, the present, plans for the future). For new bird parks, we also include a video from the site in one of the e-mails. These videos are very popular. They entice people to visit, or conversely bring the place closer to people who cannot get there.

How many recipients do you reach with your mailings?
Our entire mailing list has around 55,000 contacts with an open rate of about 23%. Of that, the donor segment is over 3,500 with an open rate between 55–75%, and that is who the first campaign teaser went to.

And what about target groups, how do you segment them?
This time we did not split the mailing list into many segments; we made do with major donors, donors and other contacts. The other contacts are mainly ČSO members (who have not donated yet), people who signed our Petition for a Healthy Agricultural Landscape, ČSO newsletter subscribers, volunteers and, above all, contacts from Ptačí hodinka (Bird Hour, the annual January count of birds at feeders).

Do you also actively use social media?
The main part of the campaign was e-mailing; we used social media less, and more for informative posts than fundraising ones, although the link was always there too.

On Facebook, we basically posted just 2 posts and then one announcing the result. Those posts were shared a lot, especially the first one. On LinkedIn, we mainly rely on the power of our ambassadors, and there we saw 12 posts from three people. We did not put the campaign on Instagram at all; we have a different style there.

Your mailing list is truly impressive, and people clearly have a strong relationship with you. Where do you get new contacts (lead generation)?
Mainly from Ptačí hodinka, which brings us around 4,000–6,000 new contacts a year.
It is an annual cross-border citizen science event held on the second weekend of January (this year was the 7th edition), with several tens of thousands of people taking part every year. We ask the public to watch and record birds at a particular spot (usually a feeder) for an hour. The methodology is very simple, so both individuals and groups can join in. The event also gets media coverage. The results are then sent to ČSO, and thanks to them we gain not only contacts and new members, but above all an overview of the state of wild birds in the Czech Republic (including international comparisons, because this activity takes place in several countries at once). More at https://ptacihodinka.birdlife.cz/.

On top of that, we gain around 800–1,000 new members every year (which partly overlaps with the Ptačí hodinka contacts); people know about us from the media and social networks, and they can tick the newsletter subscription box on our website. From the past, we still have quite a few contacts from the Vraťme život do krajiny (Let's Bring Life Back to the Landscape) petition and various other online campaigns.

Every year we also organize around 200 events in the field, such as bird walks or volunteer work days in the bird parks, where people can leave us their contact details offline; that is hundreds of contacts a year, which our volunteers then type up.

And did any PR partners help you with promotion?
Not PR as such, but about 10 days before Christmas, the artist Toy_Box offered to donate 50% of the proceeds from her bird-themed art prints to the creation of the Střimická výsypka bird park. That brought in around CZK 25,000. And this support continues to this day.

Vladimír Kořen is also rooting for us; he shared our campaign appeal on Facebook.

That said, especially after the establishment of the park was announced, the topic has been resonating in the media on its own; for example, we were in the main evening news on TV Nova, the midday news on Radiožurnál, the regional news on Czech Television, on regional news websites and so on.

When running fundraisers, do you think about acquiring recurring donors?
We do not specifically target recurring donors during land-purchase campaigns, but on our Darujme.cz forms there is always the option to tick recurring support, which donors sometimes do, so their number keeps growing organically.
What we find interesting is that in campaigns, even donors who have a standing order for other projects give one-time donations. In the case of Střimická výsypka, 126 existing recurring donors gave an additional one-time donation this way, and in total it “made” almost CZK 400,000.

What were the total non-payroll costs of the campaign?
Around CZK 30,000. Mostly travel expenses for preparatory trips to the site, photo and video documentation and some communication tools.

How much did you invest in advertising?
Nothing. We do not use paid advertising for fundraising at all.

So if you had to sum it up once more, which factor contributed most to the success of the whole campaign?
First and foremost, donor trust and their good experience with the work of ČSO. For example, the fact that people are very fond of the bird parks; they can take part in free public events there several times a year, so they can see with their own eyes how the parks work and that their donations really are used to restore the landscape. And as I mentioned earlier, in this particular case we think the size of the land also played a role, and perhaps also the fact that it is the first bird park dominated by forest, so a different habitat, because until now we have mostly had wetland bird parks.

Donors also often told us they felt we truly owe this region of northern Bohemia the restoration of its landscape. The foothills of the Ore Mountains supplied coal and electricity to the whole country and paid for it with irreversible damage to the landscape and the destruction of many villages, including Střimice, which had stood there for at least 700 years.

Do you have a closing message for others?
I am keeping my fingers crossed for everyone who takes on fundraising campaigns, especially those for the protection and restoration of nature and the landscape.
While preparing and running this campaign, I often thought of the motto of the Czech-Slovak Fundraising Conference from two years ago: “Fundraising with courage”.

Because launching a campaign for CZK 4.7 million really did take courage and, above all, trust in donors. But it was worth it, so I would like to tell everyone not to be afraid to take risks, of course after carefully weighing the potential of their donors and other circumstances.

Thanks to courage and a willingness to take risks, we established the largest bird park in the Czech Republic, the land is now owned by ČSO, and we sincerely thank all donors and supporters.

More funding for the bird park will be needed over the course of this year for the first management measures (such as removing non-native trees, rejuvenating the orchard, information boards and more), so we will be glad if you join its supporters or, say, come to a volunteer work day. ČSO bird parks will be here forever, for birds and for people.

Thank you very much for the interview and for revealing what goes on behind your fundraising. I believe other organizations will be able to draw inspiration from your example when creating their own campaigns. We wish you many more successes and enthusiastic donors!

The interview was conducted by Martina Vaňková (Darujme.cz) with Lucie Hošková, Head of Fundraising at the Czech Society for Ornithology.