Reduced Postage Rates

There has been a lot of complaining lately about the reliability of the U.S. Postal Service. To which I say, “Bah humbug!”

Stop the complaining. Every business day, nonprofit organizations in our country receive a gift that keeps giving and giving: sharply reduced postage rates courtesy of American taxpayers.

It’s a big gift, too. The postage discount for nonprofits is approximately 62 percent off First Class rates, depending on your level of mail presorting. What if your postage expenses suddenly jumped 2.6 times? If you use direct mail to raise money, you would be hard pressed to absorb that kind of cost increase without enduring a lot of budget pain.

But, that being said, there are some interesting and potentially troubling trends in nonprofit direct mail worth examining. Alert fundraisers, take note!

In 1970, according to the USPS, nonprofit organizations mailed nearly 4 billion pieces of mail at discounted rates. By 2005, that figure had grown almost four times to 15 billion pieces.

The U.S. population was 203.3 million in 1970, which translated into 63.4 million households, according to census reports. In 1970, nonprofit organizations mailed 63 pieces of discounted mail per American household or, on average, 1.2 pieces per week.

By 2005, the U.S. population had grown to 299.8 million and the number of households reached 108.8 million. In the same year, nonprofit organizations mailed 138 pieces of discounted mail per household, or 2.7 pieces per week. (Actually, the pieces-per-household rate is much higher because nonprofits don’t mail every household in the country.)

So pay attention to what you say and how you say it in direct mail; you’re competing with dozens and dozens of other pieces of mail vying for your donor’s attention.

Watch what you mail
As this table shows, there has been a slight decrease in the speed of delivery for nonprofit mail, from 10.9 days on average up to 11.3 days, a 4 percent degradation in days-to-home delivery. But what’s most alarming about the tracking research is that approximately 10 percent of nonprofit mail is not delivered at all. (The tracking study involved 25 nonprofit organizations mailing nationally: 13 health charities, seven religious organizations, three education groups and two cultural organizations.)

This fact alone is justification to mail all of your packages to higher-level donors and all gift receipts with First Class postage; you can’t afford for 10 percent of these important pieces to go missing.

Finally, as we saw in the total mail volume numbers, the nonprofit sector is growing in its use of direct mail. It’s a force to be reckoned with.

FS sister publication Target Marketing recently reported that 32 percent of the top 50 mailers by volume in the United States are nonprofit organizations, making the sector second only to the publishing industry in mail volume. Using list rental and exchange data, plus evaluation of the Who’s Mailing What! Archive, the magazine identified 16 organizations as part of the top 50 mailers. Among them: AARP, American Diabetes Association, American Red Cross, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Disabled American Veterans, National Wildlife Federation, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Republican National Committee, The Salvation Army, and the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

These mega-mailers might be out front in volume, but that doesn’t mean they’re any more worthy than the thousands of other organizations using mail and other direct-response channels to communicate their needs.

So this holy season, celebrate your discounted postage rates; be wise and recognize that not all discounted mail gets delivered; take care in how you communicate so you are distinguishable from the competition;
and know that you are part of a great movement of organizations working to make our nation and the world a better place.