The February Conference of the Direct Marketing Association’s Nonprofit Federation (DMANF) opens today in Washington, DC. I won’t be able to make it, but have been reading the program.

I’m deeply concerned that an essential, if widely unexplored, topic basic to fundraising is missing. There’s plenty about analytics, monthly giving, how to do this and do that, but nary a panel on “The Ugly vs. The Beautiful in Fundraising”. Shame on the conference organizers.

How in the world could the Program Committee have missed something so essential?

Maybe direct marketers don’t have to worry about ugly fundraisers vs. beautiful fundraisers and ugly donors vs. beautiful donors. After all, direct response, especially direct mail, has the anonymous benefit of allowing its practitioners to save humanity without having to ever see the people we deal with. Nor do the donors, mercifully, see us.

I think this anonymity represents a huge shortcoming. Nearly three decades of economic research clearly shows that beauty brings in more bucks than ugly.

Handsome NFL quarterbacks like Russell Wilson, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are paid an average of $370,000 more a year than their less handsome brethren. The ‘beautiful’ average worker earns between 8 and 10% more than his or her ‘ugly’ colleague. Even ‘beautiful’ grade schoolers get higher marks and easier treatment from teachers than their ‘ugly’ classmates. All of this according to reams of studies we’ve been carefully reviewing.

To make it easier to rate your prospects (or your co-workers) there’s even The Symmeter, a technological marvel enabling us to measure and rank ‘beauty’ at the click of a mouse.

So why will the direct marketing fundraisers in Washington today and tomorrow be wasting their time talking about RFM, file optimization, predictive analytics and telemarketing?

Silly people. Don’t they know that it’s ‘beauty’ that really matters when it comes to money. Exception: According to the research on all the professions and trades, the only one that rewards ‘ugly’ is Armed Robbery. (I assume that ‘ugly’ enables one to do the job without firing a shot.)

Alas, I fail to spot a panel or presentation on “The Importance of the Beautiful Solicitor”. Or “Boost Your Retention Rate By Avoiding the Ugly Donor.”

In their remarkable book, The Why Axis, economists Uri Gneezy and John List report that in door-to-door-solicitations the more attractive the solicitor the higher the average gift. (‘Attractiveness’ was determined by a panel of 152 judges who rated solicitors on a scale of 1 to 10).

!!DMANF delegates!! You’re wasting your time messing with ‘moves management’, ‘donor experience cadence’ and ‘winning online techniques’. All of this is nonsense or at least a thing of the past.

What you gotta start addressing is the critical issue of the new, breakthrough, cutting-edge, direct response paradigm: “Faces Made for Direct Response”.

Don’t let the DMANF Program Committee get away with it. When they ask how to improve the next Conference, speak out on your evaluation survey. Demand topics like:

The beneficial effects of a ‘beautiful’ or ‘handsome’ signer pictured on the dm letter.

Photographic profiling of best (meaning ‘beautiful’ vs. ‘ugly’) acquisition prospects.

The importance of “Beauty” and “Ugly” Blackbaud tags for reinstating lapsed donors.

Don’t let ‘ugly’ spoil your next online fundraising video!

You get my drift.

It’s time for our sector to get with it. The ‘beauty effect’ is the new trend.

Don’t miss out.

Just look in the mirror. You deserve no less.

Roger

P.S. Full disclosure. To shield you from our blinding beauty, Tom and I have elected the profession that best matches our looks — blogging.

Despite this, Tom sometimes slips by assuring me that while he’s shaving and staring into the mirror he possesses an uncanny resemblance to Matt Damon. Do you see the resemblance? Here’s Tom and me at my recent 80^th birthday party.