A new strategy helps Mothers Against Drunk Driving revive its stagnant fundraising, recommit to its missin and invigorate its staff and volunteers.

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

Part four: Major gifts
Direct marketing had built MADD a base of about a million donors, but those names didn’t come cheap. And to make matters worse, there was no strategy for segmenting donors and personalizing relationships.

“Every single one was treated in the same way,” Heard says. “They were all in the same donor stream, which means you got 12 mail appeals a year no matter how much you gave, how many times you gave or how many years you’ve been giving.”