10th Annual Gold Awards for Fundraising Excellence

By Sean Norris

Sustainer/Monthly Giving

Amicus Society
Judicial Watch
Submitted by Judicial Watch

The Numbers
Recipients: 33,233
Response Rate: 5.07 percent
Total Cost: $28,111.79
Income Generated: $71,937.15
Average Gift: $42.79
Cost to Raise a Dollar: $0.39

Why It Won
Judging this spring 2014 sustainer campaign proved tough for one major reason: Due to its role in reporting the IRS targeting controversy earlier that year, Judicial Watch received a healthy bump in national media coverage, contributing to a major leap in response for the campaign. Launched in 2008 and mailed twice a year to the organization’s donor file, the campaign has consistently performed well, delivering above-average response in each year of its eight-year run. This time, though, the response rate jumped from its typical 1.75 percent to a 5.05 percent—a huge increase that Judicial Watch attributes to the extra media exposure.

Ultimately, the judges decided that the campaign was strong enough to win even without the assisted response rate, and praised Judicial Watch for capitalizing on the heightened awareness and delivering a mailing that resonated with its donors. Made up of 10 pages and a return envelope, the substantial mailing scored big on presentation. “Normally I would want to see everything printed double-sided, but in this case I felt I was almost reading a legal brief, so it worked,” said one of our judges. The overall look and feel of the mailing played wonderfully to its target audience, making this campaign a winner.