St. Catherine’s Gets Personal... College Personalizes its Fundraising

Located in a picturesque corner of Saint Paul, Minn., the College of St. Catherine is the country's largest Catholic college for women. St. Catherine's, whose enrollment surpassed 4,700 students in 2004, relies on private donations to help achieve its mission of educating women to lead and influence.

Sarah Berger, director of the Annual Fund for the college, counts on GLS to help her with several printing and mailing projects each year. Berger said that GLS account executive Nick Herschi is persistent and helpful in moving her projects forward—even when her budget is tight. “He knows what our resources are, what our needs are.” Berger added that when it comes to deadlines, Herschi is tenacious. “He makes sure he is on task to meet our deadlines; Nick is good about staying true to our schedule.”

Since each direct mail campaign can target anywhere from 3,000 to 25,000 prospective donors at a time, Berger knows that the right marketing message is crucial. “Even though a gift might come in from a phone solicitation,” Berger commented, “we know they are often impacted first by direct mail.”

Lately, St. Catherine's has been taking advantage of personalized mailing campaigns to achieve greater marketing impact. By accessing the latest variable data printing technology at GLS, the college is adding a personal touch to letters, envelopes and postcards.

“He knows what our resources are, what our needs are.” Berger added that when it comes to deadlines, Herschi is tenacious. “He makes sure he is on task to meet our deadlines; Nick is good about staying true to our schedule.” — Sarah Berger, — Annual Fund Director, — The College of St. Catherine

Typically, at the start of a project, Berger provides Herschi with a brief outline of the job—how it will look, how many will be printed and what it is designed to accomplish. Although she works closely with her own creative department to develop the content, Berger often asks GLS for creative ideas on how to personalize something or produce it more efficiently.

For example, Berger recently completed the college's 2003-2004 Annual Fund campaign. At the start of this project, Berger revealed to Herschi that the college received a special challenge grant to increase the level of donor giving. Did GLS have any tips on how to promote this message via direct mail?

Indeed, GLS had an idea that was right on the money. Herschi suggested personalized letters that included specific financial records from the college's donor database. Each letter would thank the donor by name for their previous donation of ($A), while asking them to consider increasing their donation to ($B) for the current year. The new amount ($B) was based on a percentage increase over the previous year's donation.

According to Herschi, this approach gave donors the opportunity to respond to a specific financial request, while at the same time acknowledging their past generosity. It also saved donors the step of searching their records in order to match previous donations.

The final product consisted of more than 10,000 mailing packets—each containing a personalized letter with perforated reply panel, a tri-fold brochure, a reply envelope, and a personalized carrier envelope. Generic versions of each piece were first printed on a litho press at GLS. Later, personalized elements were added by merging St. Catherine's donor database with GLS' variable data printing equipment.

Herschi said he enjoys the fact that Berger is always open to suggestions on how to generate an effective mailing for St. Catherine's. He remarked, “Between Sarah's ability to come up with great content, and our planning and personalized printing capabilities, we create a lot of impact.”

The College of St. Catherine's knows from experience that the “personal approach” goes a long way...and GLS couldn't agree more.