Winners of the 2014 Gold Awards for Fundraising Excellence

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

The Numbers
Recipients: 17,085
Response rate: 6.16 percent
Total cost: $2,830
Income generated: $87,824
Average gift: $83.40
Cost to raise a dollar: $0.03

Just like retailers, the Art Institute of Chicago in 2013 wanted to take advantage of the buzz around Cyber Monday — the Monday after Thanksgiving when online shoppers take advantage of special deals. To that end, it utilized a lightbox on its Web page for a 24-hour campaign to generate revenue by offering a 20 percent discount on gift memberships. The lightbox captured only the name and email required to redeem the discount. Once those fields were completed, the full e-commerce page appeared so the transaction could be completed.