Case study: print outperforms when it comes to fundraising

to maximize donations, remember the remittance envelope!

We recently printed the annual report/donor solicitation piece for an East Coast non-profit, Laurel Hill Association. LHA is an environmental/open space preservation organization that relies on its donors and members to fund land acquisition and trail maintenance across its stable of properties.

LHA asked for format recommendations that would make for an economically viable and successful fundraiser. "HLPS opened their samples room to us and discussed the performance of various pieces they had recently printed. We settled on a booklet format with a tipped-in remittance envelope based on their observations and the results achieved by similar organizations," said Patrick White, LHA's treasurer and the piece's designer.

"The recommendation turned out to be outstanding, as the piece pulled 300% of its total cost in terms of printing and postage," White observed.

What was especially interesting was the method of donation: even though the website donation URL was mentioned throughout the piece, all of the donations except for one came in via the remittance envelope. "We believe the convenience of the remittance envelope, and the fact that it could be kept handy for the next time the donor was writing checks, served as a reminder to give and kept it top of mind," White theorized.

Another interesting point: an email version of the solicitation was also sent to previous donors. It also resulted in just one donation. "Were it not for the direct mail effort, and the specific recommendations that HLPS made in terms of format and the remittance envelope, we believe our efforts would have been quite disappointing, rather than the success we ultimately achieved," White concluded.

See a flipbook version of the printed piece below. We combined the original PDFs for the piece and the envelope together into one flipbook. You can view the envelope starting on page 11.