Internet fundraising has come a long way since credit card capability was The Big Thing. Come see how youԶe grown.

By Paul Barbagallo

According to Koenen, IFAW e-mails one fundraiser and one action alert a month to its online database of supporters.

“The fundraisers clearly are the emotive hard asks, something you would find in a direct-mail piece,” Koenen says, commenting on the 300,000 individuals worldwide who receive IFAW e-mail appeals. “But there are some that we send that are just purely, ‘here’s something of interest.’ It’s one of the brilliant things about the Web. If direct mail wasn’t so bloody expensive to produce and create and mail out, all of the environmental groups would have a potential to tap into, but because it’s so expensive, and you’re not going to get a return, it limits what you can do through the mail purely for activism purposes. With the Web, it doesn’t cost us a penny more to send out an action alert.”