DEI and Public Interactive Announce an Enhanced E-philanthropy Initiative

July 28, 2006 -- DEI and Public Interactive announce an enhanced e-philanthropy initiative to include copy for membership fundraising campaigns, advice on integrating e-philanthropy with traditional fundraising tools and establishing best practices for online fundraising in public radio.

Enhanced online fundraising services from DEI will be available to help public radio stations beginning with the fall fundraising season.

The initiative kick-off coincides with the release of Public Interactive's newest product: Pulse™ a feature-rich, integrated email marketing system designed specifically for public radio and television stations. Pulse provides easy-to-use administration tools with advanced reporting options and an extensive feature set that meets the needs of both experienced direct marketers and those new to email marketing.

DEI and Public Interactive will collaborate with a small group of stations using Pulse. The collaboration will conduct tests and experiments designed to help establish the most effective approaches to online fundraising that can ultimately be implemented at all public radio stations.

DEI's online fundraising services will be available at no charge to DEI member stations for use in all e-marketing systems and at a nominal fee to non-DEI members. Public Interactive affiliates using Pulse will automatically have access to all DEI online fundraising copy in a consistently updated content library, with distinct versions for each station format. The library will be continually updated to reflect industry best practices as they're established..

DEI President Doug Eichten believes that this enhanced service and collaboration will have a significant impact on public radio fundraising. "Online fundraising will become as important to public radio as pledge drives and direct mail are now. Our objective with this collaboration is to help stations integrate online fundraising into their current membership mix because that's the best way to maximize response to all of our fundraising efforts."

Public Interactive president Debra May Hughes states, "We wanted to get this right for our stations. We knew the winning email marketing strategy included simple, elegant and powerful tools that delivered personalized content, engaging the audience. The DEI initiative is the perfect fit. We wanted to challenge established best practices, analyze data, and enable stations to have access to the best copy with a few clicks of the mouse." For more information contact Jay Clayton, DEI's Individual Giving Coordinator, at jclayton@deiworksite.org or 781-598-8822 or

Dan Jensen, PRI, 612.330.9212, djensen@pri.org