Fearless Fundraising

“The Leadership Circle program becomes sort of a feeder into the Justice Blackmun Society direct-response program. In turn, we’ll downgrade people if after two years they aren’t giving a single gift of $1,000 or more. We’ll move them back into the Leadership Circle program so that we’re not over-investing in terms of that. It’s a very fluid movement between the Leadership Circle program and the Justice Blackmun Society,” Kushner says.

Fluidity — and a good deal of smarts — typify how the organization manages its fundraising and membership programs. NARAL Pro-Choice America has started to analyze the performance of segments of its list and adjust its communications accordingly. For example, Donahue says that in the past the organization would send blanket appeals to everyone who didn’t fall into its renewal or reinstatement tracks. But it’s begun to look more carefully at the performance of segments on its list, sending fewer messages to segments that aren’t performing well. For these poorer-performing segments, the organization turns to the messaging on its “Who Decides” package in the hopes of reigniting their affinity with its mission.

“For those segments that are brought on with a specific message, if they’re not responding to our appeals messages, which are usually issues-based, we’re trying to go back and bring them back into a frequent-donor status by touching them with what brought them on the file in the first place,” Donahue says.

Making the effort to take a step back and retool its operations to create a smarter, more fluid fundraising program has helped grow the organization’s housefile; and for a political advocacy group, that growth means more than just increased revenue.

“As a political organization, the strength is in having those numbers of donors who are also voters and activists,” Donahue says.