
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 25, 1994                   TAG: 9402250115
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

. . . AND PEACE CORPS WORK FINALLY EARNS CREDIT

Join the Peace Corps. It's the toughest job you'll ever love. And when it's over, you can get a MasterCard Gold with a higher line of credit.

Such is one of the offers in a mailing from the National Peace Corps Association, the private, nonprofit alumni arm of the Peace Corps.

You also can "save money on travel and help out the National Peace Corps Association." Or save up to 25 percent on your long-distance phone calls.

And every time you charge something, take a trip or make a long-distance call, the association receives a contribution that helps "bring the world back home."

But isn't there something out of sync about the Peace Corps offering corporate deals?

Robert Smythe, who volunteered in Nigeria in the mid-1960s, thinks so. "Here we are, supposedly having given up part of our lives to national service, and that somehow makes us more marketable."

"People just love to see idealists sell out," says John Ettinger, who finished his service in Paraguay a few years ago.

Susan Ueberhorst, the association's membership director, said the group did grapple with the "actual message that was going out" and turned down some marketing slogans that were too corporate.

But the association ultimately decided that the offer boils down to smart fund raising. And while some of the funds go toward overhead costs, the bulk goes for advocacy, Ueberhorst said. Programs include grassroots support for immunization programs across the country, as well as lobbying Capitol Hill for more foreign aid.

For credit-card companies, the marketing strategy is profitable. Just as it would warm an Elvis lover's heart to have the King on his or her Visa, so might Peace Corps alumni like to remember life in a mud hut. And with an interest rate of 16.9 percent and that high credit line (up to $25,000), MasterCard's making out OK on the deal, too.

by CNB