A Blast From the Past: Return to Sender (November 2006)
FundRaising Success published its first issue in November 2003, making this our 10-year anniversary year. To celebrate, we're running stories from past issues throughout the year.
“Not a known member.” “Undeliverable.” “Deleted.”
These e-alternatives to the old postal pain-in-the-neck message “Return to Sender” can be annoying at best. At worst, they can signal a sad state of affairs in your e-mail files that can waste your organization’s precious time and money — not to mention eroding delicate donor relationships because your advocacy, fundraising, educational and thank-you messages, etc., simply aren’t getting through.
As e-mail is given a larger chunk of space in the fundraiser’s toolkit, organizations are learning that you can’t just hit “send” and hope for the best. Even more than that of physical postal addresses, the e-mail universe is a fluid, soupy milieu where inhabitants can change identities on a whim and contact information has the lifespan of a snowflake in August.
