Telefundraising Campaign of the Year: Democratic National Committee

Democratic National Committee

"Final Days" Major-Donor Telemarketing Appeal

Submitted by Chapman, Cubine, 
Adams & Hussey

✔ The Numbers

Recipients: 8,127

Response rate: 12.7 percent

Total cost: $113,877

Income generated: $523,650

Average gift: $508.40

In the world of fundraising, where organizations are planning their year-end appeals while the ice-cream trucks are still beckoning to vacationing students mid-week mid-day, two months doesn't seem like a long time. But that was all it took for the Democratic National Committee to pull off the highest-grossing major-donor phone campaign in its history. Created by Chapman, Cubine, Adams & Hussey on behalf of the DNC, the "Final Days" (as in there were 40 days left until the 2010 elections) campaign actually beat the highest-income-producing campaign from the record-setting 2008 presidential election by 10 percent. Plus, according to CCA&H's Lon Chapman, "the astonishing 72 percent credit card pledge rate meant that nearly three quarters of the money was collected within 72 hours."