This article was originally published in Canadian FundRaiser.

Size counts! The bigger it is, the better it is! That’s your house mailing list I’m talking about, but the statement is true only up to a point. Your list might be too big! As “cost in the mail” increases, the smart fundraiser concentrates on quality rather than quantity. Some of you are still mailing to people who are dead … or who might as well be dead because they haven’t done anything with you in years.

If you have no renewal program, and have never done a purge mailing, start planning one today. Its purpose is to remove from your list the dead wood–names to whom it would be wasteful to continue mailing.

You don’t need a purge program when you’re using a renewal series, since failure to respond to a renewal solicitation is a clear signal to stop mailing. It is also not required when the member/donor/subscriber has made their wishes known, for example by contacting you to remove their name, or by returning a membership card or other symbol of the relationship.

When should you purge?

Purging is required when inactivity becomes visible. You should be tracking your donors for “the big three”: recency, frequency, and size of donation. From your statistics, you can calculate the average frequency of donation. Let’s say it’s once every nine months. Allowing for a supporter to “miss a turn”, you should send a purge mailing, this month, to all those you haven’t heard from in the last 19 months.

Some organizations purge automatically, simply by removing names that haven’t been active in a certain period of time. Doing this almost always causes needless loss of productive names. It is normally better to let your supporters control whether or not their names should be purged.

Construct a mailing that reminds your donor of their inactivity, and ask if they want to continue to receive your mailings, or maintain their member status or whatever. If they respond at all positively–even if they don’t send any money–keep them in active status for an additional time period. Using the timing of the example, another nine months should be appropriate.

The purge mailing should be sent first class, so you get best address correction and mail forwarding and return. If you get no response within a reasonable time (two weeks?), then you can remove the name without further ado. Some systems, however, send several letters before letting failure to respond trigger a name removal. These three- to five-letter purge series often achieve more nearly optimum results.

If you get a negative response, remember that even a “no” from a donor can be a positive event. Unless your supporter is clearly disenchanted beyond the point of redemption, a follow-up telephone call, can identify and address areas of concern, and perhaps salvage the relationship. Remember, you work very hard to get donors in your database. Don’t let them go without a fight!

James Bannister is a consultant in direct response marketing and communications, based in Toronto. Readers may contact him through Canadian FundRaiser.