What the ...? Who's on your list and who's checking it twice?

"I've seen enough to know I've seen too much."--Radio Announcer in "A League of Their Own" (1992)

When you're in and around the direct response world long enough, you see just about everything. That includes people who make mistakes and learn from them and those who don't learn and thus make bigger blunders. Of course, the latter people get promoted.

There are those who believe technology will be the sector's fundraising savior. Several billion dollars are spent on nonprofit direct mail every year. If you're on one list, you're on 10. That's where the data analysis comes into play.

There are all sorts of computer programs for helping to select the best donors. There's merge/purge, wealth overlays, last gift analysis and general probability algorithms.

Given all of the information out there, the question is: What genius thought I'd be a good candidate to become a member of the Republican National Committee?

The envelope looked quite official. "Final Notice" was printed in red letters across the front. The letter was signed (in offset printing, not even autopen) by RNC Chairman Robert M. "Mike" Duncan. The letter implores: "If you have not already done so, it is critical that you accept your Republican National Committee (RNC) membership today by rushing in your 2008 Sustaining Membership Dues of $25.

First, if 25 bucks is going to help sustain the RNC, it's got bigger problems than trying to get my money.

The letter referred to "Senator Hillary Clinton's fundraising juggernaut." The letter arrived two days after the announcement that the junior senator from New York had to lend the "juggernaut" $5 million of her own money. It said nothing of the tens of millions of dollars being raised by Sen. Barack Obama.

Here's the best line. "The support of good Republicans like you is vital to victory." The type was underlined from "support" through the end of the sentence.

I examined my most recent checking account statement. The check to the Morris Plains Democratic Committee had cleared. My first brush with politics came in 1969 when at age 10 1 helped my mother stuff mailboxes for Democrat candidates. There was one, albeit brief, loss of sanity while in college and it had nothing to do with inhaling. I voted for John Anderson, a Republican running for president as an Independent. Even I couldn't vote to give Jimmy Carter a second term.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

But, actually joining the RNC is a completely different proposition. Nobody is taking credit for the invitation. I've made a couple of calls to the usual suspects and all have denied responsibility. The RNC uses multiple creative resources, so pinning down from which list this came is next to impossible versus a stonewall. You have to ask if list hygiene is even being practiced, given they are probably seeking an acquisition response rate north of 2%.

This is right up there with the time a senior person at a major national charity boasted that his computers knew everything about the organization's donors and ended up sending mail to my dog, Quincy.

You have to wonder about what charities are getting for all of the money spent on data enhancement. The RNC letter would not have been as offensive, or funny, had it not been as specific. It was the attempt at being so familiar that got them in trouble. Suggesting a relationship that doesn't exist is what gets direct mail people in trouble, like when senior citizens get an offer for a product that looks like a renewal and confuses them into buying.

Prospecting is an important aspect of fundraising. But, so is data hygiene. There's nothing more important than getting that first gift. You just can't pretend to know something about a prospect. If you do but you don't, you end up sending mail to my dog.