Appeals Take Variety of Tacks as September 11 Draws Near

As September 11 approaches, fund raisers at Mount Union College, in Alliance, Ohio, are treating the institution’s

donors with utmost sensitivity.

To ensure that supporters don’t receive solicitation letters on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks, Alison E. Novicki, who runs the college’s annual-giving program, moved up the mailing date for a 10,000-piece direct-mail campaign to before Labor Day. To have even more control over the delivery date, she upgraded the mailing’s status from bulk rate to the more costly nonprofit first-class.

“I based my decision purely on my own emotional response,” Ms. Novicki says. “Last year I spent the entire day in front of the TV. It was the most difficult time I’ve had in my entire life, and I know that every September 11, emotions will well up inside me. People have every right to deal with the anniversary without interruptions.”

Ms. Novicki is not the only fund raiser who considers September 11 sacred. Across the nation, nonprofit groups are taking steps to keep letters from arriving in donors’ mailboxes on the anniversary of the attacks, suspending telemarketing appeals that day, and reviewing letters and other mailings to make sure they do not make the charities appear insensitive — or worse, like they are trying to capitalize on the tragedy.

Saint Peter’s College, in Jersey City, N.J., across the Hudson River from where the World Trade Center stood, is halting telephone solicitations and other contact with donors during the anniversary week of the attacks. In addition, the college has stopped featuring photos of the Twin Towers in its direct-mail pieces and other marketing materials, said David Siroty, director of public affairs.

Normally when Saint Peter’s is in session,15 students call some 200 prospective donors per night, Sunday through Thursday, following up on annual-campaign solicitation letters. This year, however, the college will use the week of September 9 to give student callers extra training.

Promoting Accomplishments

Unlike Saint Peter’s College, City Harvest, a New York charity that gathers surplus food from cafeterias, grocery stores, restaurants, and bakeries and delivers it to food pantries and soup kitchens, is using the terrorist attacks as a way to appeal to supporters.

In a mailing to past donors scheduled to go out at the end of last month, the group makes an explicit reference to the tragedy, saying, “The world is a very different place today than it was a year ago. In the aftermath of September 11th, many of us have felt the anxiety, the uncertainty, the fear, and the helplessness of being vulnerable for the first time in our lives.” The letter continues, “For the more than 2 million New Yorkers living in poverty, this vulnerability has only added to their difficulties. Many of them are hungry, too.”

City Harvest helped coordinate food delivery to rescue workers right after the attacks, and it described that work in dispatches to donors last fall. But in a pair of fund-raising appeals mailed last spring to potential new donors, the charity did not mention the attacks. It felt the best way to introduce people to the charity was to use time-tested appeals that gave people a basic overview of the charity’s work, without getting into the details of the post-attack aid.

But Amy Leveen, a fund-raising consultant who advises City Harvest, said that to retain donors, the charity must keep them abreast of its activities and use current pitches each time. Mentioning how September 11 has increased hunger is simply reporting the facts that influence the group’s work, she says.

Still, Ms. Leveen says charities should not make September 11 the focus of their appeals unless the tragedy’s aftermath was truly a focus of their mission. “Otherwise,” she says, “it seems exploitative and could be perceived as an offensive message.”

That is a point many groups are taking to heart.

In the months following the attacks, KQED, which operates public radio and television stations in the San Francisco area, referred to the attacks, telling donors and viewers that it had spent extra money on producing news reports and special programs to help children understand September 11, says Brian Eley, a KQED spokesman.

But with those one-time expenses covered, the station has not continued referring to the tragedy, Mr. Eley says. The only exception will be in program notes describing a radio documentary about the attacks that will air this fall. The program will be promoted in direct-mail pieces sent to supporters.

Different Styles

Two advocacy groups that rely heavily on direct-mail appeals — Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union — are treating the September 11 anniversary in sharply different ways.

After the attacks, Americans United wrote to supporters about preachers who blamed the attacks on godlessness and politicians who exploited religious symbolism to express patriotic sentiments. But Americans United no longer sees a strong link between the attacks and its mission and does not plan to refer to them in the future, says Robert Boston, a spokesman for the group.

In a package that will go out in the next few weeks to prospective donors, the group will discuss “back-to-school” themes such as school vouchers and the Pledge of Allegiance. “There’s nothing we can do to solve terrorism,” Mr. Boston says. “We can no longer discuss September 11 in a tasteful manner.”

Conversely, the American Civil Liberties Union is putting the September 11 attacks at the heart of its fund-raising appeals.

The ACLU has concentrated all of its recent mailings on laws passed since the attacks that it believes infringe on civil liberties. The organization sends out 5.5 million to 6 million pieces of mail annually to prospective supporters, along with 80,000 renewal notices each month to existing or recently lapsed supporters.

A recent mailing to potential new donors reads, “Today, as America struggles to cope with the aftermath of the terrible events of September 11, fateful decisions about the future of civil liberties and of equality and tolerance are being debated amid calls for increased national security.”

Another such letter begins, “A new chapter in American history was written on September 11 when terrorists attacked our nation, wreaking death and destruction on thousands of innocent people.” It continues: “Security and civil liberties do not have to be at odds.”

Geraldine Engel, the group’s director of membership, says that mentioning the tragedy and the related legislation is appropriate because it has become the predominant focus of the ACLU.

Still, events could change, Ms. Engel says. She is not sure what the ACLU’s appeals that are scheduled to arrive early this month will say.

“Sometimes it is painful, but we keep things fresh,” she says. “We have had to rip up 650,000 letters before; right now we are writing two packages at once.”