I recently made a donation to my local Boy Scouts of America chapter. In return for my donation (although I did not know it at the time) I was sent a BSA polo shirt. I didn’t want the shirt. Had BSA asked, I would have told them to keep it. That would have saved the BSA some money and stretched my donation dollars.
I understand that premiums can “lift” donation response rates, so I have no problem, in theory, with using premiums to increase donations. But isn’t it within the realm of possibility that some donors will donate and NOT want the premium? And wouldn’t it be really easy to add a little checkbox to the donation form that says something like “Please make my donation dollars go even farther by not sending me any premium I’m entitled to”?
How about you? Does your organization offer premiums for certain levels of donations? And do you allow your donors to “opt out” of receiving their premium?