First, Do No Harm. Unless You're Feeling Lazy

“LOVE THE SINNER, HATE THE sin” is good, compassionate advice. But there are times when the sins of the direct marketing industry make me so…very…angry…that love is hard to come by.

A case in point: A few months ago, Washington Post columnist John Kelly wrote about direct mail solicitations his mother-in-law Kathy received. Check that. His late mother-in-law Kathy, who has not been in a position to receive mail since last October.

Among the solicitations were those from Mothers Against Drunk Driving; the Alzheimer's Association; AARP; the National Trust for Historic Preservation; and several other charities. Now, these are perfectly respectable organizations, with assumedly sophisticated donor- or prospect-maintenance programs.

Kelly's wife has been patiently putting stickers reading “Deceased, Return to Sender, Remove From Mailing List” on some of the pieces addressed to her late mother and sending them back. Giving mailers a chance to remove this name is a kindness to them — certainly more so than just dropping the solicitations, shredded, into the nearest receptacle, which is probably what I would do under similar circumstances.

How do mailers repay this kindness? As Kelly writes, “Invariably, the next missive we received would have Kathy's name and our address.”

How many transgressions of decency and common sense does that embody? First off, it violates what should be a Hippocratic oath for marketers: “Do no harm.” The mailers flat-out ignored a direct request from a recipient — one made at a painful time, in response to a painful subject.

Second, it raises an interesting question in the mind of the recipient: Does an organization that has the money to waste on ill-targeted solicitations really need additional contributions?

Third — and here I'm going to be a bit crass — this is a wasted opportunity for customer relationship management. These solicitations came from nonprofit organizations that depend, at least in part, on the kindness of their contributors. Kelly's mother-in-law may have had a relationship with these organizations (that's easy enough to check). Chances are, though, that Kelly and his wife did not.

What better way to generate goodwill — and a relationship with a potential donor — than a small, personal note either from the regional director or the organization's head? No, such a note should not contain a solicitation. But it should acknowledge Kelly's mother-in-law's contributions, and express sympathy for the loss.

Kelly has put his mother-in-law's name on the Direct Marketing Association's deceased do-not-contact list. Yes, of course marketers should honor this. But if, from the outset, they'd reacted a bit more humanely to a very vital piece of information the Kellys supplied, those marketers might have achieved something more valuable than saving a buck or two on a mailing: specifically, the chance to build a new relationship with a potential donor who already has an emotional attachment to the cause.

It would be easy enough to blame this on each charity's mail-room. It also would be wrong to do so. These groups, and others like them, need a policy from the top covering such sensitive issues.

And the crux of those policies — even before “How can we rekindle a relationship with the family” — should be “Do no harm.”