We're a large non-profit that is a membership organization driven by volunteers. I'm looking to re-vamp our Distribution Policies to prevent abuse since I hear all too much 'Hey, I'm a member, I want a pull of the entire state of Illinois for "alumni related purposes"'. Obviously these requests could be because of a organizational related request or for their own personal gain AND I do not want our members bothered when they need not be.

What are your List Distribution policies? How do you limit? Prevent abuse? Reasons for telling someone no?

I'd really appreciate assistance with this!

PJS

We are in the midst of the same discussion.  Our current policy: when distributing lists to the field we omit current donors (gift in the last year) as a way to "regulate the amount of correspondence they receive."  We also requested a copy of the correspondence so we would know for sure what the purpose of the list was.

This seemed to work OK, but we didn't do a great job sticking to our own rules and probably will end up being stricter (omitting major donor prospects, for example). 

 I'm excited to hear other responses!

 -Carrie

PJS,

We only distribute lists to development committee members, board members and staff - and only after they have agreed to (and signed) our confidentiality statement.

In addition, if someone (a member) wants to send cooresponse, we requests a sample of the coorespondence, present it to the development committee.  If the DC votes that it is okay to send out - the member provides US with the pieces and we send it out from our office - they provide the funds for postage...

 Hope that helps.

DGJ

How do you monitor those that have signed a confidentiality statement?  If you have a monitoring document, would you share with me?

Thanks, 

Z LaRocca

zolarocca@cmhregional.com

We don't have a written policy so there are depends/exceptions.  But for the most part WE DO NOT GIVE OUT OUR LISTS --

Here are the exceptions:

once in awhile an alum moves and is looking for other alumni in the new city. Here we provide email and phone # only.  We just printed an alumni directory and the information was in there so we feel ok to give it out to another alumni, who could have purchased the book.

Once in the three years I have been here a Trustee set up a mailing for an art related event at the local hospital.  We had them send us the finished piece and we mailed it ourselves.  This had the disadvantage the we picked up the postage. 

Once in the three years I have been here we did a trade with a The Cleveland Orchestra (we have not used the payback yet). We sent our list to the mail house - one time use-,  The orchestra staff never had their hands on the list. We also reviewed the piece before committing to the mailing. 

Any trade or event usage as above must be signed off on by the Sr VP for Institutional Advancement.

Hope this was of some help