This slideshow requires JavaScript.

As part of my year-end giving, I decided to join four different history organizations (one historic site, three historic preservation organizations).  I support the mission of every organization I joined–there’s no attempt to embarrass them here–but I also wanted to see how a new member and unsolicited gift was received.  In this tight economy, every organization seems to placing a great emphasis on growing membership and support, so it’s useful to learn what others are doing.  Admittedly, this is just a limited experiment, but for each one I downloaded their membership forms from their websites, filled it out, and then sent it in with a check for the basic individual membership level all on the same day in mid December.  So far, I received responses from three of the four organizations (and they arrived about a day apart) and here’s how they compared: Continue reading →