Let’s make WWF $1,000,000How could the World Wide Fund for Nature

make a million bucks by reading these 18 slides?

Markus Sandelin (@banton)

December 17th 2012

Sell more stuff

People will keep consuming and purchasing more and

more stuff. More and more charities are making a lot

of money by participating in sales campaigns, such as

software bundles. Selling stuff is not a bad thing,

selling bad stuff is.

The reason for this?

I worked with WWF a few years back and noticed

that there was a major malfunction in the way things

were done. Out of the millions of people visiting their

websites, only one percent (1%) went to the donation

page, but close to a quarter (25%) went to the store.

This is quite common in every charity.

The problem?

The problem with all charities is that they usually

spend all their money on their donation page instead

of building and running a great store. The question

became, how to merge these two into a single

machine?

The idea - EcoCommerceThe concept is quite simple. WWF should own and

run the largest ecological web store in the internet. It

would choose all partners whose products would be

available and it would take 30% of all sales, just like

Apple does with its App Store. People can also donate

a percentage of their whole purchase towards charity

whilst paying.

eCommerce = lots of work

Yes. That’s why WWF will only run the proverbial

department store, where the partners can set up their

own shop-in-shops. Just like the App Store.

Here’s an example:

Maintained by WWF

Partnered with a vendor

Global green logistics partner

Sellers

Landing page

Payment

Logistics

The platform

Why is this a good idea?

WWF is one of the top brands in the world. They also

have massive amounts of traffic. Most eco brands lack

the brand awareness of major corporations, so by

joining forces, WWF could give out its brand to raise

awareness for these smaller and local brands.

Our way or the highway

By controlling the whole, WWF can exert pressure it

never has been able to - financial. The platform

should develop constantly, increase demands for

ecological values, promote sustainability and

durability in both products and the supply and

delivery chain.

The business case?

Let’s speculate that WWF would get ten million

yearly visitors to their sites. If we assume that the

existing 25% will go to the store, the store would get

2.5 million annual visitors.

The money

Let’s assume that from the 2.5 million people, we

could convert 2% into 50,000 purchases. If the

average purchase would be $50, the site would sell for

2.5 million dollars per year. Should WWF take the

30% off that, they would earn $750 thousand every

year.

The charity

On top of those 50 thousand purchases, the site

would ask for donations just like Kiva.org does. Five

or ten percent of your total purchase to run and

support WWF. If 10% would give the 10%, that would

bring an extra $25,000 per year.

Own products

When we add WWFs own products to the mix,

limited runs of designer clothes and special products

(like product (red) does), they would earn another

hundred thousand on top of the previous sum.

Not just a million dollars

Sure, the sales might be a million bucks - but that’s

not the point. The point is leading by example and

raising awareness using tools that have not been

available before.

If you build it, they will come

The thing with great shops is that people like to come

again. Currently, most of WWF visitors are first-time

or otherwise new visitors. They are not repeat

customers. That can be fixed.

Building it

Setting up an eCommerce site is not as hard as it was

five years ago. There are great players who already

master the art and I’m sure modern players like

Shopify and Stripe could help the store get up just for

the heck it.

Check out: www.shopify.com & www.stripe.com

Can it be this simple?

Yes it can. You only need a few dedicated

professionals and good partners to get it done. Start

small and grow slowly. Instead of money donations,

accept help from companies - they can make you

much more money.

Thank you!

If you want to talk about this topic or want to know

more about the plan, send me a message or give me

a call!

Markus Sandelin (@banton)

markus@kingmuffin.com | +358 44 36 99 887