LIFE MEMBER NEWSLETTER DISCUSSION
By Kevin L. Bachler [KLB]
[BG]
are comments by the editor
[KLB] I saw the piece on the life
member newsletter. Certainly, there are some criticisms that can be raised
both regarding the newsletter and the article. Let me mention one of each.
The article criticized the newsletter for
committing to a semi-annual publication, and noted that we may want to see
the return on this mailing first. It is common knowledge (call your local
small college development office for confirmation) that a mailing like this --
which is essentially an alumni appeal -- may do very poorly in the first several
mailings. Alumni appeals do well by being consistent. Perhaps the
way this was handled was poor, but the idea of commitment to the concept (for a
significant time) is correct.
[BG] Interesting
point, but it only argues for continuing even if the response is poor.
[KLB] Yes -- but not indefinitely. While I
know it takes a while to build donations in this way, I do not know if there is
"an average" time. Certainly, if done well, it should be given
some amount of appropriate time to see if it pans out.
The problem with any "marketing
approach" is that the results are often not immediately apparent.
[BG] I still
don't see the reason for the announcement of the semi-annual schedule- better to
see how much money comes in, get some input from life members, and then retain
the flexibility of doing annual, semi-annual or more frequent mailings in the
future.
[KLB] At first I thought so
too--but in talking to a college fundraiser they made the point that if the
delivery is stated definitely that the returns are often better.
On the other hand, this should have been
mailed first class, because part of the idea was to get returned newsletters to
find out who we could remove from the life membership rolls. I believe
that Helen Warren had intended to volunteer to spend several hours doing this in
the month of June -- only to be frustrated to find that this is not now
possible.
[BG] I would
have complained about this too, but I thought it was mailed first class- didn't
see the envelope as I was away the day it arrived and it was thrown out.
[KLB] Apparently, this seems to have
been some kind of an office error. I know that Helen had a trip to the
office planned just to go through the returned envelopes to remove them from the
LM list! Hopefully this error will be corrected with the next
mailing.