This
is what Allison Sanders, Director of Development at the Western PA Humane
Society said recently about how this process can work. Her answers are in green. They are gearing up
for their 2nd contest this year. Their 1st, which was
last year, raised over $25,000 for them.
1)
Did you use:
a)
Eblasts?
b)
Newspaper ads (purchased or donated)?
c)
Radio spots (purchased or donated)?
d)
Internal communications, such as an internal newsletter to friends/donors?
e)
Posters/flyers?
f)
Other?
We
sent out email blasts, put an ad in our newsletter and handed out information
in our adoption rooms and at our clinic. We didn’t purchase any newspaper
or radio advertising, although we are on a radio station each week with a pet
and I believe the person who talks about our pet of the week mentioned the
contest on-air. We also printed information 8-up on a page of 8.5 x 11
paper and sent it out with all acknowledgment letters. After our
contest, however, we conducted a survey through Survey Monkey and found that
most people heard about the contest from our website. Second highest “How
did you hear about the contest” response was from our email blast.
2) How much do you think each of these PR
efforts led to the success of your campaign?
Again,
I think the PR efforts that helped us the most were our website and email
blasts. I don’t know that purchasing a newspaper ad would pay off, so to
speak, but I’m thinking about the possibility of getting some on-line ads…we
also got postcards made last year (designed for free so we only had to pay for
printing) and put them in the goodie bags of everyone who attended our big
event last August (over 600 attendees).
3) What advice would you give an
organization when using this type of fundraiser?
I
would tell people to keep reminding their constituents about the contest and to
tell them to tell their friends! We had a lot of people enter our contest
who were not past donors/members or adopters. I think it also helped to
send out emails with a sense of urgency (Only 3 days left to vote for your
favorite critters!).