Last Look: An Interview With David Duncan, Director of Membership and Development, Civil War Preservation Trust

FS: What are the biggest challenges your organization faces as far as fundraising is concerned? How do you overcome them?
DD: The acquisition of new members/donors continues to be one of our biggest challenges. The only way I know to overcome it is to continue to mail to core lists, testing whenever possible. Also, communicate with everyone from the board of trustees on down that — despite the impulse for caution — you absolutely, positively still must be in the mail; you cannot shut down acquisition. Limited testing in some of the donor models may also help, but I’m not convinced it is a panacea. Fortunately, we have a very low attrition rate, so even with our modest acquisition numbers, we are able to keep our overall membership steady.