Special Report: Fundraising 101 Direct Mail

If the investment is greater than the average gift for a particular list, you probably should not continue using that list unless there are other measures that are exceptional, such as a very high percentage of response or average gift. Otherwise, payback simply will take too long.

When choosing lists, select organizations that have missions similar to your own. There are also predictive models you can test — lists that use your housefile data to build a profile of your most attractive prospects.