Center for Spectrum Services - Autism Awareness Bi-Annual Newsletter

Print & Mail

Case Study Summary: This is a 2024 CRST redesign Autism Awareness Newsletter NonProfit (or design improvement) of a 501(c)(3) organization’s newsletter along with an accompanying “deep dive” review of the non-profit’s direct mail Master List. We’ll briefly discuss the purpose of such a redesign along with the necessity for a periodic in-depth review and “scrubbing” of the primary mailing names, organizations & addresses.

Case Study Content: The Center for Spectrum Services, by its description, “has earned a national reputation for excellence in serving people across the autism spectrum.” As with all not-for-profit organizations that are innovative and progressive in their educational and philanthropic mission, it is necessary to show clients, stakeholders, donors, and even staff that the forward-leaning direction is reflected across all areas. Cornerstone Services, Inc.‘s role here was to assist in the corporate communications area in Autism Awareness Newsletter NonProfit with an eye toward development goals, in keeping the graphic design contemporary and data up-to-date.

NEWSLETTER

As you can see with before and after designers, both content and stylistic changes were made. Some of the important changes were:

1. Inclusion of association memberships such as the National Association of Special Education Teachers and local Chambers of Commerce.
2. Addition of social media/web presence profiles (e.g. Instagram, Facebook, Yelp!, YouTube, X, etc.)
3. A foundational application redesign of the newsletter in Adobe InDesign (vs. legacy applications that provide fewer design/font design features).
4. Review of other arms-length national and international Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), special education, and even Asperger Syndrome (AS) newsletters for “best practices” ideas to include.
5. Macro-level, “bird’s eye” assessment to ensure that all aspects of the newsletter is thematically in line with the organization’s charitable, educational and/or philanthropic mission.

DATA

For the data, and similar to the newsletter, we typically do not make radical changes. As with all contact lists provided for direct mail communications, send back a “Data Quality Report” (a.k.a. “DQR” in Cornerstone-speak) which gives the communications or development office a detailed report about changed or invalid (undeliverable) addresses, repaired names/addresses, exact or “near” duplicate records, etc. Some of the other things we looked for here (as we do for all new data lists, which is in no way unique to Spectrum Services, are as follows:

1. Identification of business names without contact names.
2. Missing titles to contact names (if associated with businesses).
3. A large percentage of unconfirmable addresses (that did not receive verification via USPS® approved CASS certification).
4. Check to see if names/organizations are still in business.
5. An unusually low NCOA®/MoveUpdate percentage (which could indicate there other data quality issues).
6. International addresses not compliant with IMM (International Mail Manual) construction.
7. Potential opportunities to add other data sets to the MasterList (should there appear to be obvious commissions).

SUMMARY

Our suggestion is for any organization to make a modest design change to a newsletter at least every 4 to 5 years. This indicates to the recipients that the organization is ever-relevant and self-aware of its operations and communications. Also, very practically, people get bored with the same appearance after a while, so in the spirit of preserving general interest, it simply helps to “mix it up” now and then. Periodic data review is also key not only to to get rid of duplicate names/addresses and bad information, but also to add new information and records. Usually, similar Master Lists degrade about 5 percent each year because businesses close, and people move away or achieve what we call (euphemistically) “divine departures”. We often recommend to not-for-profits that they make a habit of adding new names/businesses to their communications data, and even if it is as simple as manually putting in new chamber members from the local chamber of commerce, a little effort periodically goes a long way.