A passion for putting pets first — and for staying ahead of the curve — fuels the ASPCA’s innovative strategies, and kept it energized when Katrina-relief efforts, a rebranding campaign and the overhaul of its development department all converged.

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

“It all played out great. The rest is history. If I had had an unlimited budget, I would have had focus groups around the country, but …,” she trails off with a giggle so sly you can practically hear her eyes rolling over the phone.

Jumping into uncharted waters is nothing new for the ASPCA. As mentioned, it was among the first organizations to use dedicated URLs on all of its messaging. “At the very beginning with technology, when people were still doing charity malls, we skipped right past that and started putting dedicated URLs on every mailing that went out the door so that we could track whether people were getting mail and then actually going online to give,” Sullivan says.