America’s Second Harvest’s new direct-marketing approach yields ‘remarkable results’ and proves that donors are hungry for more intimate relationships with nonprofits.

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

A look at numbers
Just how remarkable were the improvements? In the fiscal year ending June 2002, revenues from individual donors increased 65 percent to $5,593,256 from $3,379,926. The number of current donors who continued giving into the next year (an indicator of donor loyalty), jumped up to 58 percent from 42 percent. The number of active donors increased to 35,762, an increase of 29 percent over the previous year.