Prospecting in the Upper Deck

“Don’t be dissuaded by the accepted knowledge if you’re a fundraiser then naturally only fundraising lists would work better,” Mayka says. “If you’re in the political arena, so to speak, or you’re an environmental fundraiser, you know, I think you have to start looking at political magazines, whether it’s something like E, the Environmental Magazine or Mother Jones. The beauty of that is you get more names out of your merge.”

Analyzing who is exchanging/renting its list also can help an organization get a better understanding of the donors on it.

“I can’t emphasize the importance as a broker of going to your list manager and looking at that usage, because if you want to define the values of your donors, that’s found in a real pure capitalist science: what they also donate to, what they subscribe to and what they buy, which will be the people who have taken your list. So, you know, the marketplace will define the values of your donors,” he adds.

Chris Mayka can be reached via www.atlanticlist.com