In my 12^th memo, I said that the left had 4-5 times as many donors as conservatives do, and consequently they raise 4-5 times as much money.

However, I may have significantly underestimated the number of liberal donors.

I just saw a statement from ActBlue that says 6,814,320 Democratic donors have given them payment information so that with the push of one button, they can contribute via their cell phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer to any of tens of thousands of liberal organizations and/or candidates. That’s millions of liberal donors/donations to just one organization.

As best I can estimate, Democrat candidates and liberal organizations raised about $10 billion in 2017-2018 from 8-10 million donors, while Republican candidates and organizations raised about $3 billion from 2 ½-3 million donors.

For example, in the November 2017 Virginia House of Delegates election, all Democrat candidates received 153,000 donations of $100 or less, while all Republican candidates received a total of some 7,000 donations of $100 or less. In that election, the GOP went from 66 House of Delegate members and 34 for the Democrats, to a tie after the election. As I’ve said many times in these memos, prospect mail is advertising mail—and advertising affects people’s behavior.

According to the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP), Virginia Senate fundraising reports for the first quarter of 2019 shows Democrats (candidates & committees) have raised $2,162,467 to the Republicans meager $1,159,800—almost double!

What’s more, 56% of the Democrats total comes from small donors ($200 or less). The Republican small donors make up less than 5% of their total.

This November, there will be an election for the entire Virginia State Legislature, and as of today, it appears the Virginia Republican Party has learned nothing, and is in serious danger of losing the State House and Senate.

Also, since the November 2016 election, Planned Parenthood has grown from 400,000 supporters to 1,600,000. And, for the 12 months after the November 2016 election, ACLU increased their online donations from $5.5 million to $93 million, and its membership also grew by 400% to a total of 1,600,000.

It’s becoming clear that in the 2019-2020 Presidential election cycle Democrat candidates and liberal organizations will raise over $15 billion from 12-14 million donors. Even if conservatives double what we did in the last Presidential election cycle, the liberals will still outraise us by 250% and have 300%+ more donors.

THE BENEFITS OF SIGNIFICANTLY INVESTING IN ACQUISITION FOR NEW DONORS INCLUDE:

1. NEW DONORS

   Each year about 20% of your regular donors die, retire and live on a fixed income, lose interest, or experience financial setbacks, etc. If they are not replaced, your income will continue to decrease until your organization becomes irrelevant. On average, about 60-65% of those who make a first time donation to a non-profit do not make a second contribution.

2. EDUCATION

   The second largest form of advertising today is online/digital and postal mail is number three. So when you invest in acquiring donors via the internet or postal, you are educating people the same as if you spent money on TV, radio, billboards, bumper stickers, etc., except the donors are paying for the educational ads.

3. GROWTH

   Since the November 8, 2016 election, the left has poured massive amounts of money into growing their organizations—not so for conservatives. If conservatives only experience 10-20% growth in the number of their organizations, number of donors and donations, we are going to lose the 2020 election and America with almost no chance of significant future victories.

   A case in point, the largest six organizations on the left all have annual revenues of $1 billion or more. On the right, our largest six organizations added together do not even add up to $1 billion.

4. ACTIVISTS

   Some of the people who respond to your marketing (donors and favorable non-donors) will become conservative activists. This will lead them to be more energized in behalf of your cause and become more engaged and effective conservatives, including contacting elected officials, attending meetings/rallies, passing out literature, volunteering, working at polling places, getting out the vote. etc., etc.

5. NEW VOTERS

   A donor to conservative organizations is far more likely to vote and vote conservative than someone who doesn’t contribute to conservative causes. That’s one reason it’s so concerning that the left has 300%+ more donors than the right.

6. MAJOR GIFTS

   I tell our clients that 85-95% of the value of acquiring new donors via direct marketing is for major gifts, including bequests that are received primarily due to the work of your development team.

   Unfortunately, most conservative organizations do not have a professional development department, or, if they do, it’s part-time or has only one full-time person—instead of the 5 or 10+ that they should have.

   A successful major gifts program depends on a vibrant, on-going direct mail program to identify potential new high-dollar donors. Major gift donor development takes years to create relationships, build trust, and ultimately get the big gift. But cultivating new prospects is paramount.

7. MONTHLY INCOME

   Of course, these new donors will be a source of regular income each month, via house file appeals, monthly giving pledges, newsletters, etc.

A FEW MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS/ADVICE TO HELP WITH YOUR ACQUISITION PROGRAM

• Knowing the Lifetime Value (LTV) of your donors is exceptionally important because without that information, you have no basis for determining how much to invest in acquisition. If you decide to conduct an acquisition campaign to significantly increase your donor file, expect a return within 75 days of between 40-70% of your initial investment. Most successful large businesses invest heavily in order to have significant long-term growth.

  Peter Drucker, the premier business consultant of the 20^th century, insisted that the number one purpose of a business/non-profit was to acquire a customer/donor, because from the customer/donor flows profits/contributions that propel the organization to success.

  The LTV of your existing donors will help you determine how long to be prepared to wait before recovering all of your investment to acquire your new donors. I encourage our clients to be prepared to wait about 12-18 months to recover their investment.

• As a general rule, the very best time for your mailings to arrive is December 26 – April 15, and the 2^nd best postal mail season is September-November.

  Because most non-profit/bulk mail usually takes 2-3 weeks to deliver, I recommend you mail your fall mailings about 2 weeks before Labor Day, and your winter mail about December 15^th.

• The next 16 months is the best time ever for conservative organizations to raise money, and increase the size of your donors/members/subscribers. If you don’t take advantage of this opportunity, it’s likely that one or more of your competitors will.

• When I say it’s the best time to raise dollars, acquire more donors/members/subscribers—I’m not talking about growing your organization by

  10-20-30% and then throwing a party or issuing a press release about your success. Most conservative organizations should increase the number of their donors/supporters by 250-400% in the next 16 months. I can think of only 4-5 conservative organizations whose goal should be limited to only doubling their donors, and that’s because they already have a large number of active donors.

• Don’t expect when you increase the number of your donors by 250-400% that your donations will increase by 250-400% the first year. You made an investment that will pay out over many years. The LTV of a donor for an effective conservative organization can range from $200 to $2,000.

• By the way, avoid doing most of your new donor hunting in the small existing pool of conservative donors. If you don’t go outside the relatively small number of identified conservative donors, your new donors will be dividing their donations between you and 30+ other conservative organizations. Plus, you won’t be educating low-information voters about your cause, your work, and you won’t be finding new activists. For example, test business and religious lists, and charitable donor lists, including veteran lists, etc.

• If you lack funds to do aggressive donor acquisition, consider asking one or more of your wealthy supporters to make a donation for acquisition or to lend you the money and to be paid back from a percent of the housefile income from your new donors. Their gift/loan dedicated to acquiring new donors could bring in 20-30-40,000 new donors who will support your organization with tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for decades to come.

Most of our 20 clients are experiencing major growth and setting fundraising records. You can do the same. The grassroots are upset, worried, angry, frightened, and looking for ways to help save America.

What is lacking are conservative leaders who have an entrepreneurial spirit (i.e. a risk taker), the desire, a vision, and a written plan that is bold and exciting.

Non-profits are exciting and meaningful, but they should be run like a business. Something the left knows all too well. Conservatives will flock to this type of business leadership.

Thank you for your work and leadership for the cause of liberty. We have 498 days left to build the infrastructure to be competitive with the left’s juggernaut, giving us a solid chance to win in 2020. As always, I welcome your advice and comments.

P.S. A friend and an important conservative leader recently wrote to me:

…“Lack of experimental risk-taking is maddening. Have our folks lost the will to win?!”

Sad to say, but my friend has described many, if not most, national/state conservative “leaders.”

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Viguerie’s Marketing Dispatch™ may not be copied or forwarded in any format or medium to any person, entity, or digital or AI platform.

Recently there are strong indications that grassroots conservatives are beginning to wake up and become much more active and engaged in politics. I see this in donations to our clients, activity in the new and alternative media, and conservatives participation and voting in primaries.

As I pointed out in a prior memo, the left is on fire to grow their organizations, raise 5X-10X+ more money than ever before—all leading to a goal of crushing the conservatives in the November 2018 elections, then impeaching President Trump.

Most well-known liberal organizations are experiencing major growth since the November 2016 elections. For example:

1. ACLU raised $93 million online in the first 12 months after Trump was elected President vs. $5½ million the 12 months before.

2. The Sierra Club went from 6,900 monthly donors to 57,000 in the 12 months after Trump’s election.

3. In the November 2017 Virginia House of Delegates election, all GOP candidates had a total of 7,000 donations compared to 153,000 donations for Democrats.

4. Act Blue raised $522 million in 2017, up from $207 million in 2015, and $91 million in 2013.

5. Planned Parenthood added 700,000 new supporters after Trump’s election.

6. The Natural Resources Defense Council (a liberal environmental non-profit) added 500,000 new members after Trump’s election.

I’m not aware of any established conservative organization that experienced even 25% growth in 2017. In my opinion some of the major reasons why conservatives are failing to be competitive with the left are:

1. They don’t know the lifetime value of their donors, therefore they have no idea how much money to invest in acquiring a new donor.

2. They are not prepared to take a short-run loss for a long-term benefit,

   i.e., to lose $1 dollar today to acquire $25, $50 or $100+ in the future.

3. They don’t realize that investing in acquiring new donors is one of the

   best use they could possibly make of their funds. An investment in acquiring new donors rather than earning 7-10% in the stock market will return 50x+ more money.

4. Most people walk into the future backwards facing their past, because

   that’s what they are familiar and comfortable with. That’s true of most conservative leaders. But to be successful, you need to turn around and face the future, i.e., get out of your comfort zone.

5. Most conservative leaders seem to have low energy and are acting as

   if there is no existential threat from the left.

6. Most conservative leaders do not have an entrepreneurial spirit.

   Republicans are supposed to be the party of entrepreneurs, but these days the vast majority of non-profit entrepreneurs are Democrats.

7. Peter Drucker, the premier business consultant of the 20^th century,

   wrote 39 books on business, marketing and non-profit organizations. Here are three ideas that Drucker stressed as reported by Michael Brenner in MarketingInsiderGroup.com.

   1. “Any business enterprise [this includes non-profits] has two and only these two basic functions: marketing and innovation.”

      For a non-profit, innovation includes your public policy agenda, your ideas, your school’s curriculum, etc.

   2. “There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer [for a non-profit, that’s a donor].”

   3. “It’s also important to understand that Drucker considered

      marketing to be the responsibility of the managing leadership. Within a business, not a separate function.”

      Some business leaders who did not delegate marketing to a silo in their organization includes Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Howard Schultz, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, etc.

Of course none of this is locked in and written in stone. And by the way, it wasn’t always like this.

From the 1960’s through the 1980’s conservatives dominated direct mail/direct marketing. Conservatives had the organizations with 200,000, 300,000, 500,000+ donors/supporters. And it can be that way again.

Until the 1980’s the left relied mostly on three sources for their funding, i.e., taxpayer funding of their organizations, union dues and large foundations (Ford, Rockefeller, etc.)

And there’s no reason conservatives can’t once again have organizations that are 2x, 3x, 5x+ more numerous and larger than the left.

Remember what I’ve previously written that the Heritage Foundation has received ²/₃ of their $2 Billion from people whose first contact with Heritage was a postal contribution of $100 or less.

We have so many advantages including the fact that most people identify with our views and values, including traditional moral values, strong national defense, lower taxes, less government, law and order, respect and adherence to America’s founding documents, American exceptionalism, border control, etc., etc.

Americans are ready, even anxious, to change the direction our country’s elites have taken America. To paraphrase Tom Paine—we have it in our power to once again govern America.

But the opportunity is now, and if we fail to seize the opportunity it will be too late in a few years to turn America back to the vision of our founders of limited government.

All we lack are entrepreneurial leaders.

And if not us, who?

If not now, when?

A Brief Summary of my Key Recommendations

1. Learn the lifetime value of your donors.

2. Spend more on acquiring donors under $100.

3. Investing in adding new donors/members will produce far more money for your organization than any investment you can make in the stock market.

4. Drucker “marketing is the responsibility of the managing leadership—not a separate function to be delegated.”

5. You want someone with an entrepreneurial spirit to drive marketing.

Copyright © 2026 American Target Advertising, Inc. All rights reserved.

Viguerie’s Marketing Dispatch™ may not be copied or forwarded in any format or medium to any person, entity, or digital or AI platform.