2008 Gold Awards for Fundraising Excellence: And the Winners Are …

Numbers

Number of Recipients: 704,379
Total Income Generated: More than $128,000
Average Gift: More than $104
Total Out-of-Pocket Costs: $4,000
Response Rate: More than 46 percent conversion rate
Cost to Raise a Dollar: $0.03

It can be heartbreaking when children can’t enjoy Christmas because their parents are incarcerated and there’s no money to spare for gifts or decorations. To engage its donors, Prison Fellowship explained, simply, in a handful of e-mails sent between Thanksgiving and Christmas, that donors can help these children by donating to its Angel Tree project.