Winners of the 2014 Gold Awards for Fundraising Excellence

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

The Numbers
Recipients: 4,157
Response rate: 4.2 percent
Total cost: $9,932
Income generated: $90,287
Average gift: $520
Cost to raise a dollar: $0.11

I can usually predict the ultimate Campaign of the Year winners by the number of gasps and “wows” I hear as the judges mull over particular entries — as well as the amount of furious note-scribbling going on. When I heard one of our judges say, “This gives me chills,” followed by a round of hearty agreement, I suspected we had a winner. And the final judging bore out my suspicions.