Emphasize Debit Cards in Young Alumni Groups to Improve Pledge Fulfillment

I recently went to a calling center and asked a question of the students.  “How many of you have checking accounts?”  Two out of about 15 raise their hands.  Of those two, one only pays rent with their checkbook; the other lost their checkbook and couldn’t find it.  Hmmm… something tells me we need to readjust our thinking on young alumni pledge fulfillment to an even greater degree than before.

Our reliance on pledge cards through the mail has been decreasing in the past several years.  But has it decreased enough?  Perhaps we should be targeting certain populations with e-mail reminders and leaving the pledge cards to the groups that are much more likely to send them back.  The question I keep asking myself is this.  Do we really think young alumni between the ages of 21-27 use checks on a regular basis?  I would venture to say that the majority of this age demographic pays their bills online.  So this begs the question, are we wasting our time and money sending them pledge cards?