Staff members of the Cal Aggie Alumni Association say its inclusion in a recent report by the California attorney general's office inaccurately portrayed the organization's fund-raising practices. Attorney General Dan Lungren's annual report on charitable giving listed the UC Davis Alumni Association (the organization's name during the 1997 calendar year) among organizations directing less than 15 percent of revenue to charitable purposes. CAAA Marketing Director Jennifer Kerr points out that the association does not belong on the list because it does not qualify as a charity. "We are a dues-based membership organization. Contributions to the majority of organizations listed in the report are tax-deductible. Memberships are not tax deductible because members receive benefits in exchange for payment of dues," she said. Alumni association Executive Director Bob Kerr says the report drew mistaken conclusions based on incomplete information. The attorney general's report maintains that less than 44 cents of every dollar raised by commercial fund-raisers on behalf of nonprofits actually aid the charitable causes for which the money is collected. Of 615 commercial fund-raising campaigns in 1997, the report states, 32 percent net less than 15 percent of funds for charity. The report listed the names of the charitable organizations sponsoring these campaigns. Included in the report was a single membership campaign conducted on behalf of CAAA by DirectLine Technologies. The solicitation, designed to reach alumni who had never been association members and had never made donations to UC Davis, began in June 1997. The contract between the alumni association and DirectLine stipulated that, should the campaign fail to generate enough revenue to cover the marketing firm's $84,000 fee, DirectLine would reimburse CAAA the difference, Kerr said. "This is historically a very difficult group to reach," Barber said. In many cases, contact information has not been available for these alumni, or the alumni themselves have not had the desire to maintain a connection to the university, she said. "In the past we have always utilized an in-house direct mail campaign [to make contact with this group]. The results have been mediocre. We wanted to test telephone solicitation to see if it pulled a higher response," Barber said. Upon the campaign's conclusion in March 1998, nearly 1,200 new members had been enlisted for a total dues revenue of $68,115. DirectLine commissioned an independent audit and CAAA was reimbursed $15,885 on Sept. 10. "The statistics in this report look bleak because it covers only the 1997 calendar year. Our campaign extended well into 1998. So the snapshot reflected in the report distorts the outcome of the campaign," said Kerr. In actuality, the association broke even in the membership campaign and generated a new membership base, Barber said. "Our retention of members is typically 65 percent. That means this campaign resulted in an ongoing stream of membership revenue for the association. The reconnection of these alumni with the university can also lead to new volunteers and donors. So the end result is good for CAAA and good for UC Davis," she said. Association staff said the DirectLine campaign represents only a small segment of the association's membership solicitations. "During the 1997/98 fiscal year we generated nearly $600,000 in membership income. The fund-raising efforts required to solicit the memberships cost less than $300,000. The net result-and this includes the DirectLine campaign included in the report-is that it cost CAAA 49 cents to raise one dollar," Barber said. The 49 cents includes salaries and all materials, she said.