The Little Mailing That Did

The goal was modest: to acquire 500 new donors with a $25 or more average gift, so the mailing would break even. The main target for the mailing was Vermont residents who had supported a nonprofit organization in the past and who were direct-mail responsive. With no prior list acquisition results for VFB and a limited universe offered by the sparsely populated, rural state of Vermont, L.W. Robbins relied on rented lists of about 25,000 direct-mail responsive individuals who were prior donors to various nonprofits, catalog purchasers and magazine subscribers.