Survey appeal quadruples direct mail investment

An advocacy organization, located in Boston typically produced its direct mail appeals in-house. However, due to its lean staff and its many activities, the organization had just not been able to do a direct mail campaign in a while. But, when the fiscal year was almost over, the organization was looking to generate some considerable income with minimal expenses.

We worked with the organization to create a survey package that would focus on the many advocacy and legal issues the organization helped its constituents with. We identified those donors and prospects in the database that would be most likely to respond to the survey and give an additional donation. As the goal was to raise as much money as possible before the end of the year, we added a deadline to increase the sense of urgency.

The mailing went out to 700 current donors and 900 prospects in the middle of December. It generated a response of more than 9% from both groups and it has raised more than $14,000, a return on investment of 4 to 1!