A new adoption scheme for The Donkey Sanctuary – making donkeys ‘part of the family’

The Allotment was appointed to the work following its rebrand last year for The Donkey Sanctuary, a charity established in 1973.

The Donkey Sanctuary was looking to increase donations through its adoption scheme, and also to redesign its previous adoption pack, which was a series of loose-leaf items sent out in a plain envelope. The charity also decided to increase the price of the adoption scheme from £16 to £24 a year.

Mark Cross, head of brand and design at The Donkey Sanctuary, says, ‘The pack was beginning to look outdated and uncompetitive.’

The Allotment says that unlike with many other animal adoption schemes, Donkey Sanctuary donors often create real relationships with their chosen donkeys, and participate in their lives.

The consultancy developed the central idea of a ‘lifetime of memories’, which aims to position the donkey as a ‘cherished family member’.

The adoption pack was redesigned as a picture-frame box while all the donkeys available for adoption were photographed by Jonathan Oakes.

The pack has been designed to be easily assembled and can also be used as point-of-sale material in Donkey Sanctuary shops.

The Allotment says it was aiming to help people share their ‘family’ memories of the donkeys through social media. To this end it developed the Memory Maker app, which allows people to place images of the adopted donkey in any family photograph, place them in a frame and share them using Facebook and Twitter.