This evening I went to my mailbox and received yet another in a long line of junk mail pleas for cash, this time the World Wildlife Fund. I have to say that this particular package really irritated me. First, it was big, an 8.5 x 11 size envelope, containing my free gift of wrapping paper, as an effort to get me to give money.

Disclosure: I am not a tight wad. I do give money to causes I deem worthwhile, including environmental groups, among others.

Ok, someone correct me, but if the stated purpose of the organization is, among other things (and I quote), “…the preservation and restoration of their (animals) natural habitat,” why is the WWF chopping down trees, using electricity and burning fossil fuels to deliver their message to me?

This monolithic package I received was classic direct mail — several enclosures, a business reply envelope, even the pervasive “attach the sticker here” gimmick that gets endless people to follow an insane set of complicated directions for the incredibly small chance to win Publisher’s Clearinghouse sweepstakes.

I am a marketer and I am supposed to love direct mail. I do for some things. But, with our limited resources — trees, energy, etc — why isn’t the World Wildlife Fund thinking up new, less energy-intensive methods to convince people to hand over their bucks? I have a hard time trusting an organization that is environmental in nature, yet does not appear to be a good steward of those very animals it is trying to save — with, according to this letter, “strong measures.” (What exactly IS a strong measure?)

Here are my other questions to the WWF membership dept:

• Why are they buying some crap direct mail list to send me something that will immediately go into my recycling bin, using even more resources to recycle it?
• How great is their return that this package could actually meet some kind of cost-benefit analysis?
• Why are they using bleached white paper, instead of recycled (and if it is recycled, why aren’t they telling me)?
• Why is the wrapping paper a glossy, coated paper that could be difficult to recycle?