Human Rights Campaign

Wow! Who ever thought the Gold Awards could be so exciting? The sun was setting on judgement day, and we had a tie for Package of the Year. A first! So, I polled our four judges — Steve Froehlich, director of development analytics at the ASPCA; Tim O’Leary, vice president of McPherson Associates; Paul Bobnak, director of North American Publishing Co.’s Who’s Mailing What! Archive; and FS Senior Editor Abny Santicola. After some soul searching and spirited debate, they weighed in: two for one package and the other two for the other package.

In a session last week at the DMA Nonprofit Federation 2007 New York Nonprofit Conference, Jennifer Donahue, director of development for NARAL Pro-Choice America, discussed her organization’s experiences integrating e-mail, telefundraising and postal mail. According to Donahue, NARAL’s journey to integration began when it had successful direct-mail, telemarketing and Internet fundraising programs and asked the question “What now?” Among its integration efforts, NARAL began using the telephone to convert non-donating online activists who didn’t respond to direct mail. The organization saw a 2-to-1 improvement in response, which Donahue attributes to the fact that activists were contacted within 24 hours after they took an action.

The Human Rights Campaign, a civil rights membership organization that works for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality, doesn’t take list rental and exchange lightly. Dane Grams, HRC’s online strategy director, took some time recently to speak with FS about HRC’s policies regarding list rental and exchange, sharing some practices that you might find helpful at your organization. According to Grams, HRC rents and exchanges its list with fair-minded organizations and companies that are GLBT supportive. All requests for clearance of its list go through its list broker and are pre-screened. Requests that make it past the broker are put through a rigorous approval

The Human Rights Campaign is a Washington, D.C.-based national organization that seeks to advance the civil rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and is comprised of more than 650,000 members and supporters. One of the key factors that enables HRC to bring in such a high number of individuals is that it uses nearly every channel imaginable to attract new members: online; door-to-door and on-the-street interaction; house parties and Pride and black-tie events; a gift-membership program, etc. The organization also now has a two-hour radio show called “The Agenda with Joe Salmonese” hosted by its president on XM Satellite radio. In addition

Tale of an Integrated Fundraising Effort FS Advisor: March 21, 2006 By Abny Santicola, editor, FundRaising Success Advisor The Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign, founded in 1980, is the largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender political organization, with 600,000 members. When GLBT issues took the national stage in a big way in 2003 and 2004, HRC embarked on an effort to mobilize its direct fundraising efforts to make the most of the media attention. The all-out effort involved coordinating campaigns across direct mail, telemarketing and e-mail. Direct mail and telemarketing already were integrated, but the necessary next step was beefing up the organization’s

John Laurence Gile, executive director, Project Angel Food, which delivers meals and companionship to more than 1,200 people living with AIDS and other serious illnesses in Los Angeles County each day. Current budget: $4 million.

Are you making the most of the Internet? If your organization is like many nonprofits, it might be time to rethink your online strategy.

Instead of thinking of the Internet as a sideline area rife with additional expenses and hassles, “all nonprofits should be thinking of it as a core tool,” according to Sheeraz Haji, CEO of GetActive Software in Berkeley, Calif.