Gold Awards Flashback: Muscular Dystrophy Association (2010 Campaign of the Year)

As FundRaising Success gears up for the ninth annual Gold Awards for Fundraising Excellence, take a look back at the 2010 Campaign of the Year from Muscular Dystrophy Association and DaVinci Direct.

From the write-up:

Every year at awards time, the FundRaising Success offices fill up with tons of entries, many of which are bursting with inserts and offers, and offering a pleasantly tactile "puffy" quotient. This year was no exception.

But it was a classically simple mailing from The Muscular Dystrophy Association that took best of show — and handily, at that. The Research Leaders package was intended to revitalize the organization's relationship with $100-and-up donors and attract them to MDA's mid-level donor society.

The sexiest element of this four-piece mailing is a fairly standard-looking membership card affixed to a two-sided letter. The letter, signed by Jerry Lewis, is heartfelt. The mailing's simplicity and its ivory/burgundy color scheme add a distinct touch of class befitting the higher-level donors it wants to attract.

What else did the judges like? Pretty much everything.

The package mailed to 3,279 donors who had made one or more gifts of $100 or more in the previous 12 months. It raised $271,507 with a 36.44 percent overall response rate, and generated an average gift of $227.20.

Read more about the 2010 Campaign of the Year and the other 2010 Gold Awards winners here.

Then, get your submissions ready for the 2014 Gold Awards. The deadline is Aug. 22. For an entry to be eligible, the campaign must have taken place sometime between Jan. 1, 2013, and Dec. 31, 2013.

Download the entry form here. There is a $125 entry fee for the first entry from a company and/or nonprofit organization, and each additional entry costs $75 apiece.