February 24, 2000 | Read Time: 1 minute
A 50-year-old fund-raising tradition is going online.
The March of Dimes Mothers March started out in 1950 as a campaign in which volunteers went door-to-door asking their neighbors to contribute to the group’s efforts to find a cure for polio; eventually it evolved into a neighborhood letter-writing campaign as the March of Dimes expanded its mission to fight birth defects.
Now, volunteers can also use the White Plains, N.Y., organization’s Web site to send e-mail solicitations to their friends and family.
Online volunteers type their friends’ names and e-mail addresses onto a form on the group’s Web site. The March of Dimes then sends the friends e-mail messages that include information about the charity’s work to prevent birth defects, recommendations on giving birth to a healthy baby, and a request for contributions.
Recipients of the message can click on a donation link, which takes them to the part of the March of Dimes Web site where they can make an online donation.
Most of the volunteers for the traditional letter-writing campaign are women over 50, and the organization hopes to reach younger people through its online Mothers March. Gifts to the online campaign, which started in early fall, have averaged from $25 to $50, compared to an average direct-mail gift of $11.
The organization is pleased by the lower fund-raising costs associated with the online campaign. But it is concerned that the online drive could harm the traditional letter-writing effort.
“Our fear is that we don’t know if it will take away from our traditional campaign,” says Kimberly Haywood, associate director of Mothers March: “I don’t want to rob Peter to pay Paul.”
To get there: Go to http://www.modimes.org/showyoursupport2/mothersmarch.
