Create Donors — Not Addicts

So if you can generate a successful response rate from a list of potential donors without the use of premiums, you should do so. But it’s difficult to recruit new donors from the lists of organizations that already depend on premiums without using a premium of your own.

That’s why some of the most successful fundraising programs use a two-tier approach that first taps those lists that don’t require premiums. And once the source of non-premium lists is tapped out, they reach out to premium-based lists with a premium-based offer. Such programs allow organizations to tap into the premium market without corrupting their non-premium donors.