• At an upcoming leadership board meeting, carefully discuss and plan when and what types of mailings to send that will be most effective in getting more members involved with your chapter (e.g., chapter social gathering in the summer, recruiting volunteers for Thrivent Builds activities, etc.).
  
  As you do this, balance the potential benefits and impact of each mailing with the cost associated with it. [Did you know the newsletter costs less than the postcard? Click here to see postage cost per piece for chapter mailings.]
  
  For example, an all-member mailing that announces your 2008 leadership board and contact information, or explains how members can get involved with the chapter, or promotes a chapter-wide event (social, educational or benevolent) can be a great way to create awareness of your chapter, recruit volunteers, and increase member involvement and attendance. However, an all-member postcard invitation to a small local fund-raising event may not be as effective or cost justified as announcements in local congregations or an article in the local newspaper.

• Consider additional ways to get the word out about activities (chapter Web site, church bulletin inserts, church newsletters, newspaper, etc.). See the Visibility Toolkit at www.thrivent.com/visibility for ideas.
  
  
• Promote your chapter Web site in chapter mailings (and keep the Web site up to date so members will want to go back regularly).

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How to access
The Chapter Mailing Service is located in the Chapter Leadership Administration Menu (click on Manage Chapter Newsletters) and in the Thrivent Builds Chapter Specialist Tools page (click on Thrivent Builds Chapter Mailings).

Guidelines/instructions/questions
When chapter leaders access this service for the first time, they should click on the Guidelines/Examples/Suggestions link, which is found at the top of the "Manage Chapter Newsletters" page, to review guidelines and other important information about this service.

Note: Step-by-step instructions (PDF, 451K) for using the service to develop a mailing are available online on the Manage Chapter Newsletters page, and also in the Tutorials/Quick References page of the Volunteer Resources section in the Members/Chapters area of www.thrivent.com.

A link to content guidelines is on the home page of the Chapter Mailing Service. Be sure to review these guidelines carefully so you know what types of messages are appropriate for your mailings. Remember, Thrivent Financial reviews all mailings and will deny those that are inappropriate.

A Help button is available on each page within the Chapter Mailing Service with specific information and tips about that page.

The Lutherans Online Help Desk is available for any technical problems with using the service (e.g., problems with print preview, saving a newsletter). Staff can be reached at 1-866-201-1522, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central time. General questions about the service may be referred to Thrivent Financial's Fraternal Service Center at 1-800-236-3736.

Note about special mailing requests from LCS Teams: Currently, your Lutheran Community Services (LCS) Team does not have access to a mailing service to send to all members in the region. To do this, they need to ask chapters to submit a mailing for them, and the cost of these "regional" mailings then are charged back to the LCS Team. For example, the LCS Team may be hosting a Care in Regions® project that includes several chapters in the region. To get the word out to all of these members, the LCS Team will ask each chapter affected to send out a newsletter or postcard to the members in the chapter in order to promote the activity, ask for volunteers, etc. Your LCS Team has been provided with specific guidelines and requirements to do these types of regional mailings through chapters. A mailing sent on behalf of an LCS Team will not count as one of the chapter’s limit of 10 mailings allowed. See guidelines for more details

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Easy to develop
To develop a mailing, enter your headlines and text online into one of the six available mailing templates (2- and 4-page newsletters, an election invitation, an activity postcard, a general postcard or a Thrivent Builds announcement postcard). You do not need to use e-mail or a word processing software to develop a mailing.

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Preview and revise before submitting
You can preview and revise the text online as often as you want before submitting the mailing for approval and distribution (much like making an e-card). You actually get to see how your mailing will look on the chapter stationery before submitting it. We recommend you always use the Print Preview feature before submitting a mailing request.

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Prewritten articles/paragraphs available for your use
Don’t know what to say in your newsletter? A feature called Common Articles allows you to copy text that has been written for you and place it in your mailing. Prewritten articles that describe your chapter, the Care programs, Thrivent Builds activities and many other chapter-related topics are available for you to use.

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Multiple mailing options
You can mail to all of your chapter members, or you can target members in certain cities or ZIP codes within your chapter. If you choose a smaller target mailing, it will count only as one-half of a mailing instead of a full mailing of the four allowed each year.

Note: The election invitation has no Mailing Option and is automatically mailed to all chapter members.

You also may request additional copies to be mailed to you, which can be used as informative handouts at chapter meetings and other activities.

Note: With the exception of the election invitations, you have the option to send mailings to congregational coordinators only (see below).

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Congregational coordinator mailings
A "Congregational Coordinators" segmentation option is available on the "Mailing Options" page that allows the chapter to send newsletters and postcards to congregational coordinators only. Chapters may use this feature as often as necessary. (These mailings do not count as one of the chapter's 10 mailings.)

There also are prewritten articles/paragraphs available for congregational coordinator mailings via the Common Articles area.

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Automatically posted on your chapter Web site
After the corporate office approves your mailing, it is automatically posted on your chapter Web site for anyone to read.

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Mailing status displayed
The system stores the mailings you’ve already sent during a year, keeps track of who you sent them to and displays how many mailings your chapter has remaining.

You also can store mailing drafts on the system and revise them whenever you want before submitting them for approval and distribution.

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Mailing request process and cycle time

• After you submit your mailing request to Thrivent Financial, it will be printed and placed in the mail within three to five business days. You will receive an e-mail confirmation as soon as the request is placed into the approved status, and it will immediately be posted to your chapter Web site.
• U.S. Postal Service delivery rates:


• Activity Postcard, Thrivent Builds announcement postcard and Election Invitation mailing requests will be mailed first-class. Members should receive the mailings within one to two weeks of submitting the request.



• Chapter Member Newsletters and Congregational Coordinator Newsletters (2-page and 4-page) mailing requests will be mailed at the nonprofit rate and may take longer.

This is proprietary information that is solely for use by employees, volunteers, and agents of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans in connection with fraternal activities of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans.