Tracking down "lost" members
Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 11:16 am
As is the case with I'm sure almost every ward clerk in the Church, there are many members of our ward that we just don't know much if anything about. I was interested in hearing from other clerks and members of different strategies that you have used to help limit this number.
To give an example, in our ward, there are 171 total households (our ward was just split). There are 54 households that we have marked as "Lost Sheep", meaning that we don't know anything about who they are (or even necessarily if they live there). There are an additional 21 households that we have marked as "Address Unknown", meaning that we have either sent them mail that was returned with no forwarding address (the mail we sent was marked with Return Service Requested) or somebody has stopped by their house and they no longer live there. As a comparison, in our ward we have 47 households that we have marked as "Shepherd" i.e. more or less "active".
We have used various free sources (sending mail Return Service Requested, having the missionaries try and find these members, people.yahoo.com, , etc). With the end of the year approaching and having some money left over in the budget, I thought I'd investigate some pay services as well.
I saw in the recent thread about using a commercial mailing company for their ward that they used a firm that used the NCOALink post office database that supposedly has forwarding addresses for 48 months, with an approximate cost of $75.
I also was browsing around on http://www.ussearch.com - I was able to definitively find some members who have moved out (ones with less common names). I don't know if you're familiar with the service but for free it just tells you it found them, with their age, full names / aliases and relatives. If you want to actually get their address it's $1.99 per person. Or you can purchase a more detailed report that has all their past addresses (I guess I'd use that if I was not sure this was the same person?) - this one is $19.95. I am sure there are many similar programs out there.
I guess I wonder what is done at Salt Lake when you send a member record with no forwarding address? So far in my clerky tenure I haven't done that much. (Almost) all of my move outs have had forwarding addresses (mostly from returned mail with forwarding addresses). I don't know what kind of resources they have there (besides contacting the wards of relatives of the lost member, which we get from time to time). I guess it doesn't make sense for me to pay for any of this stuff if SLC has the same or similar resources that they've already paid for (and could conceivably get better rates on anyways)
So let's hear it - what have your experiences been and what has worked for you.
To give an example, in our ward, there are 171 total households (our ward was just split). There are 54 households that we have marked as "Lost Sheep", meaning that we don't know anything about who they are (or even necessarily if they live there). There are an additional 21 households that we have marked as "Address Unknown", meaning that we have either sent them mail that was returned with no forwarding address (the mail we sent was marked with Return Service Requested) or somebody has stopped by their house and they no longer live there. As a comparison, in our ward we have 47 households that we have marked as "Shepherd" i.e. more or less "active".
We have used various free sources (sending mail Return Service Requested, having the missionaries try and find these members, people.yahoo.com, , etc). With the end of the year approaching and having some money left over in the budget, I thought I'd investigate some pay services as well.
I saw in the recent thread about using a commercial mailing company for their ward that they used a firm that used the NCOALink post office database that supposedly has forwarding addresses for 48 months, with an approximate cost of $75.
I also was browsing around on http://www.ussearch.com - I was able to definitively find some members who have moved out (ones with less common names). I don't know if you're familiar with the service but for free it just tells you it found them, with their age, full names / aliases and relatives. If you want to actually get their address it's $1.99 per person. Or you can purchase a more detailed report that has all their past addresses (I guess I'd use that if I was not sure this was the same person?) - this one is $19.95. I am sure there are many similar programs out there.
I guess I wonder what is done at Salt Lake when you send a member record with no forwarding address? So far in my clerky tenure I haven't done that much. (Almost) all of my move outs have had forwarding addresses (mostly from returned mail with forwarding addresses). I don't know what kind of resources they have there (besides contacting the wards of relatives of the lost member, which we get from time to time). I guess it doesn't make sense for me to pay for any of this stuff if SLC has the same or similar resources that they've already paid for (and could conceivably get better rates on anyways)
So let's hear it - what have your experiences been and what has worked for you.