Non-profit Outreach and Recruiting

A non-profit organization sets up a booth at a fair. Their purpose is to both educate visitors and perhaps find new members. Contact information then needs to be offered to the visitors. How do they make sure that the contact information they hand out in the form of physical objects isn’t instantly tossed into the bin once the visitors leave the fair? How can those objects be made sticky¹?

What I’ve been doing for the local chapter of a non-profit organization I particpate with is making small art cards by hand which have a space on them for a person’s name. We arrange to have a calligrapher or two present who offer to write visiting childrens’ names on the cards while each child observes, then tucks the card into a protective sleeve along with a slip of paper that has contact information, and hands it to the child (or their parent). This item now has sufficient value that it’s more likely to be placed on display rather than being tossed in the trash.

The non-profit in question is an amateur medievalist society, so doing cards like that is very within our wheelhouse.

What could you do if your non-profit is instead, say, a dog rescue? Would it be worthwhile to work with a local artist to commission a small series of relevant original works for then reproducing in the form of post cards that are nice enough to be hung on the fridge or even framed? Or photos of dogs the rescue has recently aided?