Brian Cowart: a million new donors, sometimes one at atime.

When St. Jude Children's Research Hospital gets a new donor, Brian Cowart can claim that the person is one in a million. That's because that's how many new donors the hospital is now getting.

The way Cowart describes it, he just sort of stumbled into the field of nonprofit fundraising

Cowart, 36, majored in commerce at the University of Virginia but there were no extensive courses or training in direct marketing. After some time in sales and marketing, he wound up at Response Media Products as a list manager.

Before long Cowart joined CARE in Atlanta, primarily because of his direct marketing experience, but the list management experience didn't hurt. "It just sort of evolved; it happens a lot in the industry, I think." While he was director of direct marketing for five years at CARE, the relief agency routinely generated more than $60 million in public support annually before reaching the $100-million mark in 2003 and 2004.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

A native of Atlanta, Cowart relocated to Memphis when he joined St. Jude two years ago. As senior director of mail acquisition and donor retention, he's responsible for acquiring and cultivating new donors through traditional direct marketing channels like mail and telemarketing. That means raising $240 million annually. He's the primary source of new donors that funnel into the organization, which lately is running about a million new donors each year.

Cowart is part of St. Jude's national direct marketing division, the largest revenue generator for the children's research hospital. It raises nearly half of the more than $500 million in total annual revenue. Cowart's responsibilities include raising about 80 percent of the $250 million raised by the division.

The hospital last year moved from the third-largest health charity to the second-largest health charity in terms of private donations, said Lori O'Brien, senior vice president, national direct marketing. St. Jude has seen public support rise by 17 percent and 9 percent, respectively, during the past two years, approaching the $500-million mark.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"He has done some interesting work with both the donor file and with creative strategy, to identify the donors on file who have the capacity to give larger gifts, but who currently give small gifts," said O'Brien. "By identifying propensity for giving and also a strong affinity for St. Jude, Brian is zeroing in on donors who don't naturally self-identify as larger givers," she said.

"We continue to see very positive response rates ... and a fairly modest increase in donors we're bringing in year-to-year," Cowart said. The average gift to St. Jude has grown 5 to 6 percent during the past several years, he said, attributing some of that to pursuing higher-value lists, but also to some industry-wide evolution. The number of new donors acquired also has grown by 11 percent and 10 percent, respectively, in the past two years.

Looking ahead, Cowart expects to "not focus as much on the numbers of new donors, but equally on the value of those donors long-term. "As we move forward, we'll be looking more to the value of donors, not the response and how many we acquire," he said.

The hospital is "constantly trying to find new ways to bring in new donors," Cowart said, such as exploring face-to-face fundraising, and viral marketing over the telephone for donors to reach out to friends and family. In an effort to bring in new donor audiences, the organization will reach out to audiences "we may have been under-investing in," he said, such as the African-American and Hispanic communities.

His favorite part of the job? "Knowing what I'm doing makes a difference in the life of someone else. Also, what I love about direct marketing is you can instantly, or fairly instantly, measure the impact of a campaign, and the success of a campaign, and identify opportunities for improvement through numbers."