the guts of a campaign: $$$!

I find myself needing to justify all the time I'm putting into "database update" for the NM1 Congressional campaign.
Here goes!

There are ~12,000 records in the donor database I've been maintaining.

Each of these represents a potential "mailing".
At $0.42/letter, this is $5K for a single mailing.
Now... to be honest, no single mailing is directed to all 12K potential donors... but still, mailings of 2K are not rare.
Each piece of returned mail is a hard $0.42!

Much of the maintenance does not involve fixing incorrect addresses. Rather, it involves "presenting the candidate": no address abbreviations (e.g., "Rd" for "Road"; "Ave" for "Avenue"); appropriately and accurately identifying the gender/status of the addressee ("Mr.", "Ms.", "Mrs.", "Dr."). Getting these details right reflects positively on The Candidate. Messing 'em up reflects poorly on The Candidate. I'm unable to monetize the effect of this attention to detail... but my bosses consider it significant.

Recall, $0.42 spent has the potential to pull in real $$$ - even just a $5.00 contribution represents a 1000% ROI! If the chance of generating a donation is increased even slightly by having the correct information, well-presented - well, it's worth it!

This, sadly, is how I now justify my existence!

Sing a song!