A Blast From the Past: Words to Live By (August 2006)

In today’s high-tech fundraising world, why wade into an old-fashioned topic like carrier-envelope design?

The reasons actually are quite simple. First, direct mail is still the medium of choice for most large and small direct-response fundraisers. These days it’s fashionable to discuss the Internet and other alternative media, but the fact is that direct mail generates vastly more gifts than any of them. So improving direct-mail performance can have a huge effect on a whole donations program. And, experts I polled agree that the design of the simple outside carrier envelope can dramatically affect response rates.