Best Friends 2025 Magazine Article Campaign Wins a Gold MAXI for Newport One
In 2017, Best Friends Animal Society made the bold announcement to make America a no-kill zone by 2025. This year, it decided to focus on its mid-level Golden Circle donors to reinforce the important work needed to reach this goal by 2025. This was a bold challenge immediately following its big end-of-year fundraising season.
Developing a package that would stand out, it repurposed an excellent article entitled “A New Day for No-Kill,” which had appeared in the October issue of the Best Friends magazine explaining the 2025 campaign. In a standout 9 x12 envelope with a big image of Astro on the front and a teaser reading, “Together, we will end the killing by 2025,” it included a letter drawing attention to the article and reminding the donor of the 2025 goal. A full-page reply with a direct ask for support, and to a small portion of selected middle donors, a personalized handwritten Post-It note with a business card of its staff liaison paperclipped to the article to enhance the donor’s bond with its mission, completed the package.
Best Friends’ repurposed “A New Day for No Kill” package. | Credit: DMAW
But could it generate enthusiasm for a campaign with a target end-date seven years out? Any doubts about that vanished after this appeal raised three times more revenue than the previous year’s effort, exceeding its goal by an incredible 114%. Even after most of these donors had made large year-end gifts, nearly half still gave $1,000 or more, bringing in over $145,000 net revenue to make America a no-kill zone by 2025. This Nonprofit Major Donor package earned Newport ONE a 2019 Gold MAXI.
The 2020 DMAW MAXI Awards is going virtual! It’s official, the 2020 DMAW Virtual MAXI Awards will be held on November 5, 2020 from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. ET. See details at dmaw.org.
Editor's Note: This DMAW MAXI feature was originally published in the July/August 2020 print edition of NonProfit PRO.
