The DMAW/EF offers direct marketing courses, programs, and awards to college students and their professors, in order to educate and inspire potential direct marketers to enter the field. The DMAW/EF was set up in 1986 by leaders of DMAW who saw the need to educate young people about the possibilities and potential of direct marketing as a career. From the start under its first officers, Ed Sisk, Catherine Lincoln, and Bill Armistead, it was understood that it would be necessary to develop faculty understanding of the industry and to offer direct marketing courses and programs at the college and university level. The DMAW/EF, a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization, has become the link between direct marketing professionals, educators and students interested in careers in direct marketing.