Charity Finds That ‘Lift Notes’ Can Drag Down Direct-Mail Returns

Many charities tuck a short note in their appeals to describe a particular program or to reinforce the message of the solicitation.

Such “lift notes,” as the inserts are called, are widely thought to help increase the number of people who send in a gift in response to the appeal.

But lift notes, whether they are a letter from a grateful client, a memo from the executive director, or a message from someone else, can have the opposite effect too.

Dorot, a Jewish social-services agency named for a Hebrew word that means “generations,” learned that lesson from a test mailing recommended by Lautman & Company, a New York direct-mail consulting company.

The charity, which serves homebound elderly people in New York City, decided to test the effectiveness of a lift note used in a letter to potential new donors. The four-page letter tells the story of “Rachel,” an elderly woman who wrote to the charity for help. The solicitation had long included a lift note from another woman who got help from the charity.

In the test, 50,000 potential donors received the appeal with the lift note; it was left out of a mailing to another 50,000 prospects.

Dorot got a much better response from people who did not get the lift note: 159 new donors from that group contributed an average of $29.31. Among those who did get the note, only 139 people responded, and their average gift was nearly $2 less than the other group’s.

Gerry Valentine, a vice-president at Lautman & Company, says that more charities should test whether lift notes make a difference. Such inserts can be distracting and draw attention away from the main thrust of a fund-raising appeal, he says, particularly when recipients have no connection to the charity.

Another benefit of leaving lift notes out: Without them, solicitations cost significantly less.

The Dorot test showed that the charity was spending $2.73 to raise a dollar from first-time donors when the lift note was used. Without it, the charity spent $2.20 for every dollar it raised.

For more information, contact Gabrielle Golod Greenwald, Director of Public Information, Dorot, 171 West 85th Street, New York 10024; (212) 769-2850.