Address label overdrive

Well, I haven't done a particularly stellar job of keeping you updated on my charities of the month lately, though I have kept up with giving. Last month I gave for the second year in a row to the Philadelphia Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk, although this time to a different friend. Their walk is taking place right now! They had a huge problem - it was shortened to 1 day instead of 3 because of weather! - but if you go here you can see my dear friend Spets talking about what they did instead: http://cbs3.com/video/?id=89604@kyw.dayport.com. Awesome!

Anyway, so while I haven't done a fantastic job of keeping up with my charity of the month blogging, my potential charities of the month have certainly done a wonderful job of keeping up with me.

It's quite ridiculous, actually. And after I started receiving so many, I started to really turn a critical eye to some of them. The ones from Etown I use frequently - they actually have the Etown logo on them, and Etown means something to me. However, you'd be surprised how these charities totally fail to take advantage of a nice marketing opportunity. As in, for the great majority of these labels, there is no clear indication what the charity is just by looking at the design.

For example, I am a fan of Habitat for Humanity and have given time and money to them in the past. However, their labels have little cartoon critters on them! That doesn't make me think of Habitat's mission at all.

I know, you have to spend money to raise money. But at least spend money efficiently. My favorite nonprofit so far, The Nature Conservancy, has wonderful stewardship and solicitation operations - and it makes them stand out from the label crowd.

I don't even use address labels for anything except bills - and most of those are paid online, so I use like... 3 address labels a month??