Reciprocal mailings, or swaps, are still the best way for charities to reach potential donors.
Response rates are great, and any long term impact on retention is mitigated much more than tenfold by the increased numbers of donors acquired, more cheaply than any other method.
But some charities still won't swap their donors. In tough times this is unacceptable - steps need to be taken to swap, or changes made to privacy / data protection statements to allow charities to swap. Australian fundraisers have been particularly reticent to get on with it, but even in the UK and the USA I still hear of charities refusing to use their own database to get more donors.
A lot of this is not the individual fundraisers fault - they maybe don't know how it works, their bosses don't like it or they don't know how to start.
Below you can see a useful (old, but still relevant) presentation looking at a few of the issues from swapping.
In addition, I have written a paper giving a load more detail on swapping - it may have an Aussie spin, but should be useful to fundraisers worldwide. The paper is being proof-read right now, but following a comment from Mr Anonymous on a recent blog I thought it useful to publish this blog now. I will post a link to the full paper once it is ready.
Sean
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