Indian Valley Public Library - List Cleaning Leads to Giving

As the Summer of 2011 came to a close, Indian Valley Public Library in Telford, Pa., located midway between Allentown and Philadelphia, was in need of an annual appeal campaign. At the time, existing monetary support the library had collected was used for capital improvements and new building additions. Meanwhile, the library was having difficulty supporting its operating costs.

...Affinity Connection did an excellent job of cleaning up our mailing list...

With 20 years of service at the library on her resume, Indian Valley Public Library Director Linda Beck knew just what to do to maintain the health and livelihood of the library. She had seen a mailing piece Affinity Connection, Inc. had previously designed and managed for Schlow Centre Region Library and was immediately attracted to the format and use of bullet points, photos and text.

While attending a conference with the Pennsylvania Library Association in State College, Pa. during the Fall of 2011, Beck took advantage of the trip to Happy Valley and scheduled a meeting with Greg Woodman and his staff at Affinity Connection.

Although Beck admits Affinity Connection could have provided an endless list of services to support her library’s fundraising and friendraising efforts, she was interested in a quality mailer and database audit. To support the library’s annual appeal campaign, Beck enlisted Affinity’s team to create a fundraising brochure/return envelope and help clean-up the library’s database and zip code list to improve its efficiency. Beck wanted to prevent duplicate mailings from being sent to individual donors – a problem she said the library had experienced in the past.

The first mailings were sent to current and prospective donors in early November 2011. By the end of January 2012, Indian Valley Public Library received more than $75,830 from more than 925 contributors.

“Affinity Connection did an excellent job of cleaning up our mailing list. We haven’t received any complaints of getting five copies of anything,” said Beck. “And, whatever it is that they do behind the scenes, they did a speedy job.” Very pleased with the results, Beck added, “In no time at all the envelopes were in our mailboxes.”

Contact us today to learn how we can support your library or non-profit efforts to raise more money. Or, get our sample pack of direct mail fundraising letters.