World Vision Micro

How can a micro loan change someone’s life?

During my time at World Vision I had the privilege being a Product Director for World Vision MICRO, a program that provides microfinance loans to people around the world.

The one problem? World Vision is primarily known as a child sponsorship organization, and the rules of engagement were skewed.

Grow the product, but don’t hurt child sponsorship revenue. Oh… and you can’t use the same acquisition channels.

World Vision is a global brand with well established partnerships, but all of those were off limits. We needed to find new revenue streams.

The first step was to take a deep dive into the data. Who was currently giving to this product and did they look different than a traditional child sponsors? Using 1st and 3rd party data, we built out personas that identified the target audience, and also their media habits and preferences.

A child sponsor was married, and the husband was generally the breadwinner. They had two to three kids, a college degree, attended church regularly, lived in the suburbs and drove a U.S. manufactured SUV.

But a MICRO donor looked different!

They were married, but BOTH partners had masters degrees and worked in an office environment. They probably only had one child, lived closer to a major metropolitan area, and drove a German SUV.

These donors didn’t just want you to speak to their heart, they also wanted to see the numbers. Was their donation really making a difference?

So what did we do about it?

Instead of Christian concerts, we targeted business conferences. Instead of direct mail, we used traditional and emerging digital media to reach them. We invested heavily in the online experience, allowing a donor to fund a loan over their phone (which was a big deal 10 years ago!).

The results was a 50% increase in donors within the first 12 months, and no cannibalization of revenue between child sponsorship and microfiance products.