If any organization has the gumption to go after major donors via direct mail, the Web and telemarketing, it would be NARAL Pro-Choice America. It did, and it’s working.

By Abny Santicola

Kushner stresses that the major-donor direct-response program complements, not replaces, the organization’s overall major-donor strategy.

“It’s really part of a whole, and it’s on a continuum with the other kinds of very traditional major-donor stewardship and cultivation activities that go on in a comprehensive program,” she explains. “But I also would say to folks that you can receive very large, substantial gifts through the mail, and a lot of people actually find it less intrusive and are very happy to write a large check. We’ve received checks upwards of $25,000 — and even some larger than that — in response to direct-mail pieces.”