June 2, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
Predictions that direct-mail returns will drop by up to 40 percent over the next five years have prompted a spirited debate on Frogloop, a blog about nonprofit online marketing.
Allyson Kapin, a nonprofit marketing consultant, interviewed a handful of charities, including one environmental group that has eliminated its direct mail entirely, to test theories that direct mail is about to disappear.
Her conclusion is that charities should “start preparing now for a younger generation of donors who strongly prefer the online medium — not the mail — for managing their lives, including for donating money to their favorite organizations.”
But not so fast, writes Mal Warwick in a response to Ms. Kapin.
“My, my,” he writes. “Isn’t it curious how people who are young and enthusiastic about online communications are so firmly convinced that direct mail is dead or dying — while professional fund raisers, that is, the people who are responsible for bringing in the bucks, think the young critics are living on another planet?”
Many thousands of charities have raised billions of dollars, year after year — by direct mail — from millions of new donors, notes Mr. Warwick.
His own conclusions about whether direct mail is on the way out? “Hogwash.”
What’s your take on the future of direct mail?
