The Arizona Humane Society recently signed with Newport Creative Communications for direct mail fundraising strategy and already is seeing positive results. The nonprofit’s direct mail “strategy before was to mail more to get more revenue,” said Guy Collison, executive director at the non-profit. With donors starting to show signs of feeling burned out by receiving once-a-month mailings from the organization, however, Arizona Humane Society knew it needed a different approach. Animal welfare non-profits, in general, didn’t take as big a hit as other charities during the recession, reports Jeff Baker, SVP at Newport Creative Communications, which works with over 20 animal welfare organizations. As a result, “the financial problems have not impacted animal welfare direct mail as much,” he noted. In the first quarter of 2010, many of these organizations have rebounded and are back in the mail at levels that are on par with or close to prior to the recession, said Baker. Newport Creative Communications conducted a segment analysis of Arizona Humane Society’s donor file and determined that certain segments could be mailed to profitably ten to 12 times a year while others should only be mailed to once or twice a year. “It’s the concept of mailing smarter,” said Baker. While the strategy reduces the organization’s overall mail volume, it helps insure donors stay around for a longer period of time and improves the overall return on investment of mailings. Since Arizona Humane Society launched the new strategy earlier this year, there has been increase in the average gift amount and net revenue is up. “Although we don’t have as much gross revenue, this approach has been more cost effective,” said Collison. The new strategy also calls for adding personalization to direct mail pieces in order “to build a tighter relationship with donors,” said Collison. The non-profit had done minimal personalization previously. In addition, direct mail pieces will push recipients to the organization’s Web site with the goal of eventually supplementing the direct mail program with electronic fundraising. Newport Creative Communications is handling the creative and coordinating the entire program, except for database management, and collaborating with production companies and lettershops for the printing and fulfillment. The program calendar includes ten mailings this year, two of which will be acquisition mailings and the rest renewals mailings.