A kinder, back-to-basics approach to donor relations amounted to a 30 percent increase in contributions for D.C.’s Heritage Foundation.

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

As a result of the 2000 research, Heritage in 2001 chose approximately 20 percent of its donor file and reduced by four the number of solicitations those donors receive in a year. On average, donors would get 14-17 solicitations annually, which now became 10-13. In place of those four solicitations, the chosen donors received four new relationship-building contacts, in addition to other non-solicitation contacts they had been receiving, such as quarterly newsletters, thank-you letters and a variety of research publications.