Under her leadership, the WCTU NZ focused on white slavery, promoting national prohibition, and expanding women's career opportunities, especially in the New Zealand Police Force and judicial system.

[12] She accompanied the WCTU NZ president Fanny Cole as part of a deputation calling on the Minister for Education to advocate for the formal addition of scientific temperance instruction in public school curriculum.

Her memorial for Cole was published in The White Ribbon, and in it she showed her political acumen during a difficult time of disagreement among the WCTU NZ members.

The Nelson convention under the leadership of Fanny Cole had served as a springboard for debate over whether or not the Union would collaborate in campaigns by the Bible in Schools League, but the majority voted no.

Don counseled compromise and loyalty to the WCTU NZ as a democratic decision-making body: "my first act will be to appeal in her (Cole's) sacred memory to the Unions throughout the Dominion to cease all strife over the Bible in Schools question.

In memory of the departed one, let us agree to differ, and instead of wasting time in argument, let us be loyal to our Union..."[19] There must still have been controversy over this topic since she had to send a stern reminder in May of the need for compromise.

Her President's address included many of the twentieth century goals of the WCTU NZ such as food reform, training hostels for girls, oversight of immoral content in films and magazines, Sabbath observance, anti-gambling, prohibitionism, and support for disabled women in maternity homes, asylums and gaols.

She was part of a deputation of prohibitionists who visited the Prime Minister on 26 June 1914, seeking to revise the Licensing Act so that a simple majority would allow for a community to vote against the trade in alcohol.

She wrote: "The wave of patriotism sweeping through the Dominion, the dreadful news from the battlefield, our anxiety for our own Empire, our interest in our boys, is no reason why we should slacken our work.

Rachel Don wrote an open letter to "all good women everywhere to join with us heart and soul in the holy endeavour to protect and sanctify thehome by outlawing the traffic in alcoholic liquors.

In February, Rachel Don wrote to the WCTU NZ chapters from New Brighton, Christchurch where she had been undergoing hydrotherapy in the hot sea water baths.

[31] She wrote about the upcoming trip to London with Bessie Lee Cowie as delegates to the World Woman's Christian Temperance Union convention in April.

[32] She and Cowie wrote of their sea voyage from New Zealand through Panama and Kingston, Jamaica to Newport News, Virginia where they toured the countryside before sailing on to London.

Don spoke on the New Zealand campaign for national prohibition, including the strategy in 1919 of "snowballing" the House and Ministers by every White Ribboner posting a letter or sending messages.

[35]The 36th WCTU NZ Convention held at Ashburton in March 1921 celebrated the decision by government to have scientific temperance instruction taught in public schools.

[36] That year Don made sure all the local unions protested against the proposed Social Hygiene Bill with its emphasis on compulsory notification and examination of women.

The WCTU NZ now had over 5000 paying members, nearly 500 in the Youth branches, and they celebrated the success of two large Māori Unions' meetings that had occurred that year at Batley (in Kaipara District) and Wanganui.

"[38] On the last day of the meeting, the Māori delegates sang a hymn then gave a farewell gift to Don, a greenstone tiki that she wore on a ribbon around her neck.

Her presidential address at New Plymouth in March 1924 was filled with the passionate rhetoric that commanded the attention of her delegates and the public: In April 1924 Don and Christina Henderson left from Wellington to sail to the U.S. and attend the Woman's Christian Temperance Union Jubilee convention.

[41] They toured the various women's clubs and temperance social reform spots in San Francisco and Los Angeles for a month[42] and then travelled inland by train.

Henderson went on to England while Don attended three state WCTU Jubilee conventions, writing back to New Zealand of the decorations and food served at the banquets.

[46] She finally sailed from New York in late December to spend two weeks in London for the World WCTU Jubilee Convention and touring the temperance sites she had not been able to see in her 1920 visit.

[49] At the national convention, she stepped aside to allow the delegates to vote for Elizabeth Best Taylor of Christchurch who had been vice-president and was acting president of the WCTU NZ in Don's absence.

From donations of discarded stocking legs sent to her from around the country, volunteers created "princess petticoats, onepiece frocks, rompers and jumpers, knickers and bed jackets, hats, jelly bag shape), turbans, dainty silk bonnets, cuffs, mittens, scarves, sleeveless vests for old ladies, and all sizes patch work quilts, made of pieces of sox and stockings joined in a flat seam, with brilliant coloured braids stitched lattice pattern over it.