Telefundraising Campaign of the Year: Democratic National Committee

Democratic National Committee

"Final Days" Major-Donor Telemarketing Appeal

Submitted by Chapman, Cubine,  Adams & Hussey

✔ The Numbers

Recipients: 8,127

Response rate: 12.7 percent

Total cost: $113,877

Income generated: $523,650

Average gift: $508.40

In the world of fundraising, where organizations are planning their year-end appeals while the ice-cream trucks are still beckoning to vacationing students mid-week mid-day, two months doesn't seem like a long time. But that was all it took for the Democratic National Committee to pull off the highest-grossing major-donor phone campaign in its history. Created by Chapman, Cubine, Adams & Hussey on behalf of the DNC, the "Final Days" (as in there were 40 days left until the 2010 elections) campaign actually beat the highest-income-producing campaign from the record-setting 2008 presidential election by 10 percent. Plus, according to CCA&H's Lon Chapman, "the astonishing 72 percent credit card pledge rate meant that nearly three quarters of the money was collected within 72 hours."

Interestingly, our judges were torn on the script. Joe Boland thought the copy was somewhat bland and littered with too much "we" talk — but he admitted that you can't argue with results. Paul Bobnak, on the other hand, found the text to be "particularly strong." Ultimately, however, everyone agreed that this was an award-winning campaign.

Says judge Dane Grams: "Another strong DNC call; their major-gifts work on the phone is impressive."