Project Story Category: Donor & Advancement Initiatives

Bee-yond Grateful: Cornell’s Sustainable Spring Giving Campaign with Seed Paper Postcards

Sustainable eco-friendly mail pieces for collegiate engagement

Sustainable eco-friendly mail pieces for collegiate engagement Cornell University’s spring giving campaign centered around engaging alumni, volunteers, and donors through a creative and eco-friendly approach. The campaign utilized three versions of custom-designed seed paper postcards, each tailored to a specific audience: volunteers, current donors, and potential donors. These postcards creatively combined puns, vibrant artwork, and […]

UGA Scores Big: How Strategic Branded Merch Drives Preseason Donor Engagement

The Challenge As the University of Georgia (UGA) kickstarted their FY25 fundraising efforts, they faced a challenge familiar to many higher education institutions: acquiring new donors and financially engaging recent graduates in a way that resonates with them. It was also important for these donors to feel that their contribution actually makes a difference in […]

Branded Merch Helps Power Cornell University’s Record Breaking Giving Day

In 2024, Cornell University’s Giving Day was March 14—also known as Pi Day! Cornell really played into the theme, and executed a campaign that intertwined branded merch to build fun into the experience. In January, Cornell created a promotional video with Professor Steve Strogatz wearing a branded Giving Day apron—while using actual pies to explain […]

Mizzou Alumni Association Has Many Happy Campers with Successful Membership Drive

promo merch and alumni donations

Challenge The Mizzou Alumni Association wanted to bring in new members to the Alumni Association and encourage current members to renew their membership. They needed an idea that would excite people and encourage membership in a timely manner. Solution The Alumni team brainstormed and came up with a theme for the membership campaign (“Our Members […]

Baldwin Wallace University Connects with Long-Time Donors with a Custom Puzzle

Challenge Baldwin Wallace University (BW) has a robust network of donors – and most impressively, many of those donors have been donating for 20 or more years consecutively. Typically, the team at BW would hold a reception and holiday concert as a thank you to these 20-or-more year donors, but as with so many in-person events […]

West Chester Raises Funds with Garden Flag Mailer for Recent Graduates’ Families

Challenge: West Chester University of Pennsylvania wanted to celebrate their new graduates in an engaging and memorable way while at the same time raising funds for programming. The Office of Parent and Family Relations partnered with their fundraising colleagues to put together a plan to achieve these goals. Solutions: The team at West Chester worked […]

Variable Data Best Practices

  • At the quoting stage of your project, please let us know how many fields of variable data your piece will have as this can affect pricing.
  • Data should be provided to us as an Excel spreadsheet with only the applicable data included.
  • Verbiage for variable data fields on artwork file should match up exactly with data fields on spreadsheet.
  • Spacing on artwork must allow for longest data entries. We recommend that your designer tests this in advance to confirm that the fields in the design can fit your longest pieces of data.

Postage Permits

We are happy to mail using a client’s USPS non-profit number. Here are a few best practices for this to go smoothly. Let our team know up front on the project so we can make sure to get the information we need right away. 

While our mail house does prefer to use their permit number for the mailing, we can use the client’s permit, If using their permit number, ensure there is enough postage to cover the mailing.

The information we need to in order to use a client’s nonprofit number includes the following:

  • CRID (customer registration ID)
  • Non-Profit Authorization Number (with USPS, not their nonprofit number for the university)
  • Non-profit indicia
  • Return address that is on file with USPS for the non-profit authorization number
  • Permit number

Formatting the Mailing List

Our account team will advise on specific requirements for your project’s mailing list.  We generally recommend these best practices to format the mailing list:
  • Send your data in a spreadsheet, saving it in the comma-separated values (CSV) format
  • International addresses must be separated from domestic addresses
  • Domestic addresses should at least contain data fields for “first name”, “last name”, “address 1”, “address 2”, “city”, “state” and “ZIP code”