Reminder: The Year-End Holiday Giving Season Is Coming

As fundraisers across the globe know, the year-end holiday giving season is typically the time of year that the bulk of donations come in. It's the double effect of the general charitable nature that accompanies the holidays along with the attractive incentive of the tax-deductible gift deadline — and of course, people's general desire to help their missions of choice.

Since the year-end holiday giving season is so vital to the fundraising sector, it's never too early to start planning your end-of-year campaigns. After all, September is less than a week away, and before you know it, all the trick-or-treaters will be staving off cavities and bellyaches, filling their heads with visions of turkey, cranberry sauce and, yes, the December holidays.

So with that in mind, take a look at last year's Fundraising Success Gold Awards Multichannel Campaign of the Year winner, the MSPCA's Holiday Tree Campaign. And remember to get your entries in for the 2012 FundRaising Success Gold Awards for Fundraising Excellence. Entry fees are $125 for the first entry and $75 for each subsequent entry. Get your entry form and tracking sheet here, and send your submissions in today. The deadline for entries to be in our office is Friday, Sept. 7, with the winners announced in our October issue.

MSPCA

Holiday Tree Campaign

Submitted by DaVinci Direct

✔ The Numbers

Recipients: 76,097 direct mail; 86,917 e-mail

Response rate: 4.2 percent for DM; 12.8 percent open rate for e-mail, 1.14 percent clickthrough rate

Total cost: $43,388

Income generated: $122,215

Average gift: $38.28

While backing up a direct-mail package with an e-mail is technically "multichannel," the best, most aggressive multichannel campaigns use more than two channels. Such was certainly the case with this effort by DaVinci Direct on behalf of MSPCA. In addition to the direct-mail and e-mail components, it also included strategically placed posters, an expandable banner ad on the Boston.com homepage and smaller banner ads on Boston.com's pets page.