Amnesty UK drops its pen pack
Howard Lake | 14 May 2004 | News
Amnesty International UK, one of the first voluntary organisations to use a pen in direct mail supporter recruitment packs, will stop doing so.
The pen pack, introduced by the human rights group’s fundraising director John Baguley in the early 1990s working with agency Burnett Associates, was its best performing or banker pack for some years. Unlike other charities that used pens for direct mail questionnaires or other types of communication, Amnesty’s use was direct and relevant. Pens could be and had been used as an instrument of torture, and they could be used to write letters to campaign to stop such torture.
“What you hold in your hands is an instrument of torture”, reads the pack. “Go on. Tear it off the page. Hold it in your hand. Feel the point. Think about it. Stretch the imagination. Because that’s what torturers around the world do. They excel at it – using their imagination to fashion instruments of torture out of the most everyday things.” Inside, the message reads: “It’s also an instrument of change”.
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The pen pack is, according to Amnesty UK, still performing acceptably, but its effectiveness has been dropping off, so the approach will be discontinued shortly.
It was such an effective recruitment pack that its text and style was used by other Amnesty sections around the world including Ireland and Australia.
Amnesty’s decision to stop using the pen pack is fortuitous given the Royal Mail’s plans to introduce new size-based pricing from September 2005. Pen packs would very likely not be possible within a standard envelope size so would cost charities more to post.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.