Fearless Fundraising

Kushner stresses that the major-donor direct-response program complements, not replaces, the organization’s overall major-donor strategy.

“It’s really part of a whole, and it’s on a continuum with the other kinds of very traditional major-donor stewardship and cultivation activities that go on in a comprehensive program,” she explains. “But I also would say to folks that you can receive very large, substantial gifts through the mail, and a lot of people actually find it less intrusive and are very happy to write a large check. We’ve received checks upwards of $25,000 ­— and even some larger than that — in response to direct-mail pieces.”

According to Kross, when the new, comprehensive major-donor program began, NARAL Pro-Choice America had been raising $400,000 a year from its major-donor direct-response program. In 2005 that number was up to $700,000, and the organization projects major-donor revenue totalling about $900,000 in 2006. Kushner says that she had been skeptical about putting major donors in the hands of a telemarketing firm, but the major-donor telemarketing campaign consistently nets at least a 90 percent mail fulfillment rate, which Kross says is unheard of in a lower-dollar program.

Channel surfing
All of NARAL Pro-Choice America’s members receive direct mail unless they specify otherwise. Only those who opt in receive online communications. Donahue says the organization works hard to get direct-mail donors to opt in to its online campaigns and to turn its direct-mail donors into Web-also donors and vice versa.

The organization sends out direct mail that pushes recipients to fulfill the ask online by including a specific URL in each piece. It also offers a special premium to direct-mail recipients who go online to give; and it captures e-mail addresses via telemarketing calls.

In addition to maintaining multi-channel contact with active members, NARAL Pro-Choice America works toward converting online non-donor activists to donors. Donahue says she meets with the managers of the online activist program three times a week to maintain a coordinated calendar that integrates all of the online advocacy and public relations messaging with the organization’s fundraising strategy.