DM Diagnosis: What’s New?

Membership cards run the gamut with everything from a plain paper perf-out card on the reply device to a tipped-on durable plastic card with silver or gold raised lettering like a credit card.

One unusual membership card arrived from Native American Rights Fund. Showing through a second window on a 6-inch-by-9-inch outer envelope, it’s made of plastic and personalized with my name, though not with embossed lettering. The National Rifle Association sent something similar, but the personalization is in light blue on top of a dark-red stripe in the American flag and it is nearly illegible. Oops.

Interestingly, I see the most credit card-quality membership cards from the conservatives, just a few from apolitical groups like UNICEF, and none at all from the progressives. (But then, from a production values standpoint, the conservatives usually do have the sexiest mail.)

Double your donations
A matching-gift offer is another classic I see with frequency in both acquisition and house mailings. I’ve received at least one every week for the last couple of months, in fact.

Some illustrate the matching- gift offer with coupons, faux checks or “registered documents” requiring my signature. Nearly all “do the math” and spell out how a gift will be matched. And that’s wise.

“Donors aren’t accountants,” Yoda often advised. “Make it easy for them.”

For organizations able to secure matching funds, the offer usually is one of the best performers of the year. And for the lucky few like CARE that regularly receive government grants that can be used as matching funds, it can be a control offer in acquisition year-round.

But what if you don’t have match money? Make-A-Wish recently sent me some “Wishbucks” to buy hope for children who are seriously ill. While this is not a matching-gift offer, it almost feels like one because of the Wishbucks coupons, a familiar component in countless matching-gift packages.