Catalog Choice, the nation’s largest mail preference service, recognizes that charitable organizations face significant fundraising challenges in a digital age.  To help nonprofits embrace new approaches, Catalog Choice is sponsoring a $20,000 national contest designed to recognize and reward innovative digital fundraising techniques and campaigns.  The Paperless Choice Challenge, a collaboration with The Overbrook Foundation, will award prizes to nonprofits that demonstrate a creative shift from traditional direct mail fundraising.  “The challenge will reward successful, creative, and replicable fundraising campaigns that use email, websites, video, social media, widgets, and mobile — anything that is moving nonprofits away from traditional paper-based direct mail fundraising,” said Daniel Katz, environmental program director at The Overbrook Foundation and Catalog Choice board president.  “Citizens still want to hear from nonprofits, but many people want to shift from postal mail to online communications.  The Paperless Choice Challenge provides a way to showcase the best in digital fundraising.”

The Paperless Choice Challenge will be open for entries starting June 1st with submissions closing on August 16, 2010.  Four $5,000 prizes will be award to the Best Digital Campaigns for small, medium, and large organizations as well as The People’s Choice Winner.

Catalog Choice is working in partnership with Justmeans to run the challenge contest. Visit the Challenge voting page http://www.justmeans.com/take-action/paperlesschoice to submit your idea for consideration and vote for your favorite ideas. Final judging will be completed by a panel of business, nonprofit, and digital fundraising thought-leaders including, Kristin Grimm from Spitfire Communications, Daniel Katz from The Overbrook Foundation,  Beth Kanter from Zoetica, Holly Ross from the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN), Michael Stein and Nick Allen from Donordigital, and John Danner from UC Berkeley.

As part of the Paperless Choice project, Catalog Choice has launched a blog as a resource for innovation and ideas on paperless fundraising. Articles interpreting data and trends and profiling creative fundraising projects are intended to spur discussion about decreasing nonprofits’ reliance on traditional direct mail.

Paperless Choice is a project of Catalog Choice, a nonprofit organization.

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