Response Dynamics Inc.

Response Dynamics Inc. is a Vienna, Virginia, political direct-mail and fundraising firm headed by Ron Kanfer.

Scandals
Kanfer operates a group of five political direct-mail and fundraising businesses, all run out of the same address in Vienna, Virginia. The other four companies are Mid-America Printing, Fulfillment Management Services, The Best List, Inc. and Direct Response Data Management. The address of all five companies is 2070 Chain Bridge Rd. Suite 520 Vienna, Virginia 22182.

Twenty years ago, Kanfer helped raise money to pay for the notorious 1988 Willie Horton political attack ads against Michael Dukakis. Kanfer's involvement in creating the Willie Horton ads led to years of adverse publicity for Kanfer and his companies.

Charges of deceptive fundraising practices
In 2005, the College Republicans, at the time a well-funded conservative committee, ended its contract with Kanfer's companies after the Seattle Times and the Durham, North Carolina Herald-Sun disclosed Kanfer's fundraising practices of using front groups and aggressive, deceptive mailings to collect huge amounts of money from elderly people with dementia, some of whom gave away all their savings. Many donors reported that Kanfer's companies' solicitations bore the names of groups like "Republican Headquarters 2004," "Republican Elections Committee" and the "National Republican Campaign Fund," and that only the fine print on the solicitations disclosed that the mailings were projects of the College Republican National Committee. This led donors to believe their money was going to President George W. Bush's re-election campaign or other Republican efforts. Instead the money went to the College Republicans, and nearly 90 percent of it was spent on direct-mail vendors and postage, according to IRS records. Most of the vendors' share was paid to Response Dynamics and the four other firms that listed Kanfer as a corporate officer. Kanfer disputed the figures and the charges. Some of the elderly donors targeted in the mail campaigns ended up bouncing checks or emptying their bank accounts.

The College Republicans' board examined Kanfer's fund-raising practices after the family of an elderly Indiana woman with Alzheimer's disease demanded that the group return her donations. The woman's family reported that they had sent a registered letter to the source of the fundraising appeal asking that she be removed from their mailing list, but the solicitations continued. Only after newspapers reported the story about the exploitative fundraising practices did the College Republicans refund $40,000 to the family, according to Jackie Boyle, one of the woman's nieces.

SourceWatch resources

 * Center for Government Integrity
 * College Republican National Committee
 * Fundraising companies
 * Ron Kanfer

External articles

 * Meghan O'Donnell, "Young Money. College Republicans show how to play the fund-raising game," Center for Public Integrity, September 25, 2003.