Membership going green
Historic New England aims to go green whenever practical. Recent changes to our membership communications have resulted in big savings for the environment, our budget, and the amount of time required to manage memberships. Members have responded 100% positively.
Did you know?
58% of members receive our e-mail renewals, newsletters, and special event invitations and reminders. If you are not receiving our information-packed e-mail newsletters, please e-mail Membership@HistoricNewEngland.org or call 617-994-5910, and we’ll add you to the list.
The most efficient way to renew your membership is online, followed by phone calls and then mail. Our website connects to our membership database, reducing the need for manual data entry. If your web account was created before May 2010, you will need to create a new one.
E-mail renewals bring a nearly instantaneous response. Our phones ring minutes after the e-mail is sent. We are always happy to talk with members by phone during normal business hours and process their renewals on the spot, or answer questions about the online renewal process.
Green renewals
Thus far this fiscal year (starting April 1, 2010), we have sent out 13,283 renewal e-mails, postcards, and letters. Only 9,622 were sent by post, while 3,661 were sent by e-mail.
26% of members who open our first e-renewal click through to our website. As of December 1, there were 294 online renewals and 154 new memberships through our website, for a total of 448 membership transactions. Compare this to 430 new and renewing memberships in the entire prior fiscal year and 326 the year before.
In August, we replaced our second renewal letter with a postcard printed on recycled paper using non-toxic inks, bringing both cost and environmental savings. The postcard encourages members to go green by renewing online or by phone.
9,622 renewal letters and postcards were mailed so far this fiscal year. 27% of all members reply to our very first written communication. Every early response by a member helps to reduce costs, paper, and time.
Green recruiting
In July, Historic New England had a very successful membership recruitment campaign through Groupon, which brought in 253 new Contributing memberships in one day with no up-front costs or mailing required. This is more new members than we normally receive in a whole month and results were better than any prior direct mail campaign. Redemption was done online. As a bonus, the day of the Groupon offer became the most-visited day for our website ever.
In anticipation of having a lot of new Groupon members to process, we redesigned and streamlined our new member packets to make them smaller and easier to process, reducing mailing costs by more than half.
Renewing members now get their new cards in a window envelope instead of a standard one. This reduces the amount of printing required, makes processing quicker, and reduces the likelihood of error.
Member communications
Our specialty groups receive e-mail newsletters instead of printed ones, which makes for more timely communications. Invitations for Young Friends of Historic New England are primarily by e-mail and the Young Friends also have a private Facebook page.
Green events
This year we bought from local vendors and drank from recyclable cups that were ordered in bulk for all of our Members’ Month and other membership events. We are exploring a bulk purchase of compostable plates, cups, napkins, and silverware for the upcoming season.
How you can help
- Renew early – the fewer emails and letters we have to send, the more your membership dollars can be stretched and the more savings of printing ink, postage, paper, and time.
- Share your e-mail address – or addresses. We can send to multiple e-mail addresses, as you prefer.
- Prefer not to receive printed publications or renewals? We can set up your membership to only receive information by e-mail.
