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

All of that extra cash on the corporate and foundation side was a blessing for A2H, of course, but the puffed-up numbers made the funds coming in from other legs of the development plan look, well, puny. Direct marketing, especially, left something to be desired.

In the late 1990s A2H’s direct marketing program was pulling in roughly half of the organization’s contributed revenue each year, according to A2H Vice President of Philanthropy Dan Delany. But then the focus turned to corporate and foundation giving, and the direct marketing side plummeted.