volunteering

Time to Speak Up and Embrace Diversity

June 23, 2020

Written by Michael Wolaver, Captain of Magellan Promotions The issue of race and equality has been an evolving topic for me. When I grew up in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, a well-off suburb of Chicago, there were very few African-Americans in the city. So I really had very little interaction with anyone of color in my life. When I went to Marquette University, all of my close friends were white and did not have much of a multicultural experience. I was on the sailing team and one of my teammates once

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Warming the Community This Winter

November 22, 2019

There are many things we’re grateful for this Thanksgiving and chief among them was the opportunity to help dozens of children and homeless individuals get the warm clothing they need for winter. In gratitude for receiving a Future 50 Award this year from the Milwaukee Metropolitan Association of Commerce, Magellan Promotions wanted to pay it forward and give back to our community. We learned that our local school district hosts community closets in various schools where students in need can pick up a jacket or whatever else is necessary to

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Variable Data Best Practices

  • At the quoting stage of your project, please let us know how many fields of variable data your piece will have as this can affect pricing.
  • Data should be provided to us as an Excel spreadsheet with only the applicable data included.
  • Verbiage for variable data fields on artwork file should match up exactly with data fields on spreadsheet.
  • Spacing on artwork must allow for longest data entries. We recommend that your designer tests this in advance to confirm that the fields in the design can fit your longest pieces of data.

Postage Permits

We are happy to mail using a client’s USPS non-profit number. Here are a few best practices for this to go smoothly. Let our team know up front on the project so we can make sure to get the information we need right away. 

While our mail house does prefer to use their permit number for the mailing, we can use the client’s permit, If using their permit number, ensure there is enough postage to cover the mailing.

The information we need to in order to use a client’s nonprofit number includes the following:

  • CRID (customer registration ID)
  • Non-Profit Authorization Number (with USPS, not their nonprofit number for the university)
  • Non-profit indicia
  • Return address that is on file with USPS for the non-profit authorization number
  • Permit number

Formatting the Mailing List

Our account team will advise on specific requirements for your project’s mailing list.  We generally recommend these best practices to format the mailing list:
  • Send your data in a spreadsheet, saving it in the comma-separated values (CSV) format
  • International addresses must be separated from domestic addresses
  • Domestic addresses should at least contain data fields for “first name”, “last name”, “address 1”, “address 2”, “city”, “state” and “ZIP code”