Don’t Tell The Donor

For Nonprofits, It Ain’t Easy Being Green

By “A Fundraiser …”

Despite the fact that I send out millions of pieces of direct mail every year – I don’t consider myself part of the junk mail industry. However, it doesn’t take “a fundraiser” to understand that sloppy attempts at sweeping reforms to “green-up” direct mail could very well be devastating for nonprofits that rely on it for lifesaving funds.

It’s hard for anyone to defend the staggering environmental damage from direct mail. I recently saw one Web site estimate that the average American receives 41 pounds of solicitation mail every year. That’s a lot of trees…and water… and oil… and toxic environmental by-products.
And for the kids who think direct mail is bad now… 20 years ago mail production was horrid.

I’ve seen dead rivers in and around some of the paper mills and print shops that were active during the 1970s and 80s. No one had heard of process chlorine free bleach back then. The ink colorings were made of the most toxic materials man could create. Those were the days when many thought merge/purge and data hygiene scrubbing was a luxury. The damage done by mailers over the past 20 years has literally been earth crushing.

After years of simmering public unease over the wasteful practice, a recent “surge” in green public awareness has increased attention on such mail.

Yet, unlike my colleagues, I don’t think the misguided attempts by GreenDimes and ForestEthics to reduce the amount of junk mail are evil. I understand the fear driving groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) to show their leadership on the perceived environmental damage of unwanted catalogs. I sympathize with the desire from funders like the Overbrook Foundation and Merck Family Foundation who want to help leaders in these movements.

There is palpable fear from direct mail fundraisers who believe this now well-funded coalition’s fight against the catalogue industry will eventually target charities. No one can deny the rising chorus of increased calls for a national “Do-Not-Mail” list. It remains to be seen what will happen with individual state legislation. Unfortunately, this rapidly shifting public mindset has already prompted a hasty reaction from the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) in the form of the ill-conceived Commitment to Consumer Choice (CCC) and the surprisingly useful Green15 Toolkit.

Ironically, while it’s the big mailers that are the intended target for these regulations, the implementation costs and potential lost revenue of proposed “Do Not Mail” legislation’s impact is going to be disproportionate on smaller groups.

What is also being missed is that the industry is already greening at a surprising pace. Technology is driving more efficient printers and production systems. Inks and papers are more responsible. Rising postal rates along with greater input costs of paper and gasoline are forcing even the nonprofits that hate Mother Earth to find ways to mail less. New services, like advanced postal formatting, chronic non-responder services and advanced model building are allowing groups to cut potentially unresponsive recipients off mailing lists. Smart fundraisers aren’t just trying to get out in front of this issue… they’ve already been leaders in their ability to get better results by mailing less.

The truth is that pitting this as a fight of “us against them” ignores the complexity of this issue. Earlier this year, Glenn Hurowitz at Grist wrote a detailed and thoughtful analysis about the complexity of this issue for the NWF. The author says that even if NWF was responsible with its own mailing efforts its donors “might not be so amenable to NWF's entreaties when they find out that the environmental group is providing rhetorical defense to the folks filling their mailboxes with habitat-destroying, global warming-producing mail.”

I am well aware that the status quo (just like power) concedes nothing without demand. We must demand environmental accountability from the direct mail industry. However, we should talk about the important steps that have already been taken. And most importantly, we must give fundraisers a strong voice at the table when important decisions are being made that might essentially destroy critical lifesaving (not to mention earth protecting) fundraising programs.