Case Study 1
Direct Mail Fundraising: Building a New National Memorial
The Disabled Veterans LIFE Memorial Foundation was established in 1998 with the singular mission to build a memorial in Washington, D.C., honoring the sacrifice and courage of servicemen and women who received permanent and life changing injuries while in the service of our country. The foundation set its goal of raising $65,000,000 in order to begin construction of the memorial in 2010.
Challenge
In 2004 the Foundation began a direct mail fundraising program to help augment their on-going capital campaign as well as to build greater awareness of their mission. The board realized that, in order for the memorial to gain the national prominence it would need in order to be constructed as well as provide the recognition that the brave men and women which it honors deserved, they had to set a goal of 1,000,000 donors to the Foundation before 2010.
The Foundation determined that the best means with which to achieve their goal would be by way of a direct mail fundraising program. Using standard and historically tested methods and approaches, they developed and implemented a new donor acquisition program and a donor renewal program. After nearly a year's worth of testing and package roll-out data, the Foundation realized that they needed a different approach to a direct mail fundraising program if they were to reach their desired goals. If they stayed the course, it would have taken them 22 years and more than 74 million fundraising letters to reach 1,000,000 donors - at a considerable cost.
Solution
The Foundation decided to make a strategic shift in their approach to direct mail fundraising. Instead of using the old tried and true forms of direct mail fundraising, which had the program generating an average of 1.35% response rate in new donor acquisition, they decided to test a new, innovative approach.
The Convergence Direct Marketing approach paid off, generating a response rate of over 17% in a test of a new donor acquisition package. Donor renewal response rates went from a previous high of just over 7% to 26.19% with the new program. The difference: the utilization of high perceived value/high utility premiums as front-end free gifts.
Results
The Foundation goal of 1,000,000 donors to the memorial by 2010 was clearly in sight. In fact, our forecast has the Foundation surpassing 1,000,000 by the end of 2007.
This successful realization of the Foundation's program goal is being achieved with a cost to raise a dollar in the new donor acquisition program that is equal to the previous traditional program (and in fact lower than many fundraising programs). This is notable, given the relative cost of both forms of direct mail fundraising; one is paper-based only, while the other utilizes a premium such as a T-shirt, umbrella or personalized coffee mug.
Through the application of direct mail fundraising fundamentals, coupled with new and innovative methods and strategies, Convergence Direct Marketing helped transform a relatively unknown memorial foundation into a national organization and one of the most contributed-to memorials in recent history. On track to even outpace the recently completed World War Two memorial.
Through the use of free gifts such as T-shirts, umbrellas and coffee mugs, the Foundation has empowered millions of Americans to express their gratitude and support for the courage and sacrifice of disabled veterans. At the same time, the direct mail fundraising program was helping to push the mission of the Foundation and the memorial to the forefront of the national conscience.