DMFA Acquisition Package of the Year: Center for Urban Community Services NYC Note Cards

[Editor’s note: The Direct Marketing Fundraisers Association honored its 2011 Package of the Year Winners last month. FundRaising Success is highlighting some of the winning packages. View the 2011 Package of the Year and Renewal Package of the Year winner here. Today we examine the Acquisition Package of the Year by the Center for Urban Community Services.]

The Center for Urban Community Services (CUCS) has a long history of fighting to end homelessness in the New York City area. But one thing this social-services organization lacked was a direct-mail acquisition program. Enter Tripi Consulting.

“This is [CUCS’s] first acquisition package ever,” says Sue Sena, senior account manager at Tripi Consulting, who worked closely with CUCS on this campaign. CUCS committed to a multiyear direct-mail acquisition plan to grow its overall donor base.

The first priority was to come up with the proper theme. Because experience has shown that premium packages tend to get better fundraising results than nonpremium packages, particularly in acquisition, CUCS and Tripi developed a note card package with scenes from New York City.

“What’s really special about this package [is that it connects] the premium to the mission …” Sena says. “… We have had a lot of success in the mail with note card packages for other clients, so we chose to do a note card package. The artwork we chose for it were scenes from New York City.

“The whole theme of the package was about connecting the donor and asking the donor to help CUCS and help needy New Yorkers to help make the city we all love a better place,” she adds.

Thus, the “NYC Note Cards: Scenes of the City We Love” package was born. The outer envelope had the New York City skyline in the background, with the teaser “Special gifts for you: Beautiful scenes of the city we love,” printed right above the window. Inside was a letter detailing the theme of “Rebuilding lives together,” highlighting stories of the people CUCS helps, as well as a more detailed “Backgrounder for New Supporters,” highlighting more stories and programs CUCS offers. Then, of course, the note cards of beautiful New York City scenes were included as a gift to new donors.

Then the note card package was tested against a more mission-based, nonpremium package. The packages went out last November, with 33,074 note card mailers sent. Turns out, both mailers did well — with an average gift that was about the same for both — but as expected, the premium package had a higher response rate and was the clear winner.

The “Scenes of the City We Love” premium had a response rate of 1.17 percent, nearly doubling the nonpremium package, and brought in $9,963 with an average gift of $25.81. And most importantly, it helped triple the size of CUCS’s housefile while tying the creative to the mission.

Those results help the CUCS NYC Note Cards package win the Direct Marketing Fundraiser Association’s 2011 Acquisition Package of the Year.

“We’re really honored that a client like CUCS that has a really new, small acquisition program could be recognized by the peers in our industry. We’re very excited for them, and they’re deeply honored. It’s a confirmation that they’re on the right path in terms of growing their individual-giving program, so it was a great endorsement of that,” Sena says.

Now, the note card premium package is the control for CUCS. Of course, Tripi and CUCS will continue testing against it, trying out new artwork for the creative to see if they can top this mailer and continue to grow its file.