St. Vincent Meals on Wheels – Thanksgiving Donor Appeal
The Thanksgiving Donor Appeal package has always been one of the strongest performing donor campaigns for St. Vincent Meals on Wheels. In 2006, Schultz & Williams (S&W) looked to see if we could improve on the success of this package—without incurring additional expenses.
In order to increase results, S&W first moved to an earlier mail date in order to improve our competitive advantage with other similar charities mailing appeals around the Thanksgiving season.
The campaign continued to offer a matching gift challenge—a carryover from previous successful S&W campaigns. However, to help further explain the matching gift concept and to maximize its impact, we included matching gift meal coupons, which turned this giving opportunity into a tangible reward.
We also added a follow-up mailing—a small, targeted appeal to the top portion of the list file, which reminded donors of the original appeal and the matching gift program.
To stay within our budget parameters, we lowered the production value of the original package and moved to a two-color, standard format for both appeals.
The results were exceptional—the two packages combined raised $150,000 in addtional net income than the single appeal mailed the year before.