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| Consumers Union reinforces mission with new raffle By Cary Castle Consumers Union (CU), is the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, is a 501 c3 organization that raises funds to help pay for consumer product testing done in 50 state of the art laboratories in Yonkers, NY and in their auto test center in East Hadden, CT. Their mission is to test products, inform the public and protect consumers. They are probably best known for their annual auto issue which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year. CU’s Fundraising department goal is to convert their 4,000,000 print subscribers and 1,100,000 paid web subscribers into charitable donors. CU is unlike most charities in that fundraising revenue is not the biggest revenue source for their organization although it is an important part of the revenue picture. To accomplish this, the Fundraising department has been using a raffle with a $25,000 grand prize and several other lessor cash prizes to raise funds through the mail. The raffle is now in its 18th year and nothing has been able to beat this raffle especially in acquisition. Two years ago we thought about using a CU test car as the grand prize. We had heard from a few other industry sources that showing a photograph of a car along with a description of all the options would be a much sexier prize than cash and would dramatically increase response for CU. It was a good idea that was rejected because showing a picture of the car and a description of the car might be perceived as a product endorsement. CU does not accept any contributions from any corporation or manufacturer -- no money, no free products (including cars) and no free services. We do this so there is no perception of any bias in our testing of products and services. A year ago, we decided to go ahead with the car raffle test. We could not name this car or describe the options of this car in order to get this test approved by management. The grand prize would be a top rated CU test car that we would not name or show a picture of. CU’s top executives loved this idea since it re-enforced our mission of not endorsing products and accepting no free product samples or paid advertising. Focus groups had shown that more than half of Consumer Reports subscribers were not aware of CU’s non-profit status and the fact CU buys all the products its tests at retail just like its readers do. The car raffle package was to be tested in March 2002 against the control cash raffle, and if successful, rolled out in August/September. However, Joel Gurin, Executive Vice President of CU, decided to take a risk and roll out the car raffle in selected audience segments (while testing this new raffle in the other segments) in what was supposed to be the initial test mailing. This was a risky decision, but Joel felt there was a larger upside than downside. This decision turned out to be a great one as the car raffle beat the cash raffle by an average of 20% across all audience segments and even more in acquisition. Our January 03 mailing utilizing the car raffle and a successful ladder test was CU’s best mailing ever. This
new car raffle control has motivated CU to test new raffle concepts.
We will be testing a new raffle using a dream kitchen of top-rated appliances
as the grand prize. Other variations of our raffle are in planning. Cary Castle, Former Director of Fundraising at Consumers Union (Non-Profit Publisher of Consumer Reports magazine) was responsible for raising over $12,000,000 in donations through direct response for Consumers Union. |
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