DONOR FOCUS Hispanic AmericansAn often overlooked market segme

Last year, Hispanics represented 14 percent of the more than 76,000 youths the nonprofit served in the United States. And, as a Catholic organization, Covenant House naturally appeals to the large Hispanic-Catholic community.

To solicit the burgeoning market, Covenant House created a Spanish-language direct mail program based on the success it had achieved in the general market. Its current control: a monarch-sized envelope package with name stickers that feature religious imagery. (For general-market solicitations, Covenant House commonly offers three-dimensional premiums. For its Hispanic-American constituency, the organization realized it didn't need to spend as much — address labels have worked well as a freebie.)