Make Your Fundraising Postage Work Harder

In tough economic times, fundraisers must use all the tools at their disposal to ensure their organizations can continue to meet the demand for their services. Even with the growth of electronic communications, traditional direct mail remains an important tool for raising donations. Savvy fundraisers can make their investments in direct mail work harder by ensuring that their production vendors are using all available means to optimize their postage spends.

Using nonprofit Standard mail postage rates is easier than ever.
Qualified nonprofit organizations can stretch scarce fundraising dollars by using discounted Standard mail rates for nonprofit religious, educational, scientific, philanthropic, agricultural, labor, veterans and fraternal organizations. The U.S. Postal Service is making it easier than ever to use these rates by allowing nonprofits to submit applications online for authorization to mail at the nonprofit rates. In addition, once the application is granted, the organization is assigned an authorization number that can be used to mail at the nonprofit rates at any post office with no additional authorization required.

Get your mail in shape.
More than ever, postage rates reflect the the Postal Service’s widely varying costs for handling differently shaped mail pieces (letters, flats, parcels, etc.). The cost advantages of mailing a letter-size piece (one that is no larger than 6.125 inches tall, 11.5 inches long and 0.25 of an inch thick) are significant. The cost difference between mailing a nonprofit letter-sized piece and a nonprofit flat-sized piece can be nearly 20 cents each.

Ask your production vendor to suggest innovative and cost-effective formats that retain the appeal of your oversized mail pieces while qualifying for letter rates.

Make sure your addresses are complete, correct and current.
Using high-quality addresses is another way to ensure your postage dollars work as hard as they possibly can. If a Standard mail piece cannot be delivered as addressed, it will be discarded by the Postal Service. To ensure your fundraising solicitation has the best chance of reaching potential donors, be sure your service provider is processing your mailing list with CASS-certified address hygiene software including Delivery Point Validation. Additionally, Move Update processing helps your mail keep up with the more than 17 percent of the American population that moves each year. For nonprofit Standard mail — especially using rented lists — Move Update is typically accomplished using NCOALink® processing.

Be aware that new requirements for Move Update take effect on Nov. 23. At that time Move Update will be required to obtain both automation and presort discounts for Standard mail, not just First Class mail. In addition, the window in which Move Update processing must have been performed will be shortened to 95 days from the current 185 days.

Make it automation friendly.
Another area where mailers can achieve significant postage savings is by designing automation-friendly mail pieces and prebarcoding mail. When designing an automation-friendly piece, remember that as well as meeting specific size limitations, letter-size mail must have an aspect ratio (length/height) between 1.3 and 2.5 to be compatible with automation equipment. Automation letters also must weigh 3 ounces or less and either be in an envelope or be closed with wafer seal tabs or spot glue.

Select premiums carefully.
In addition to the attributes noted above, automation-rate letter-size mail must be flexible enough to travel easily through Postal Service sorting equipment. A premium added to the mail piece often disqualifies the piece from being accepted at automation letter rates. Look for premiums that are thin and flexible. Reasonably flexible items such as promotional cards or return-address labels are permitted, but pencils, pens and other rigid premiums are not allowed in automation-rate letter-size mail. In fact, a premium that makes a mail piece too bulky (more than 0.75 of an inch thick) or too rigid can not only disqualify your mail for letter rates, but might also take your mail from the flats category to the even more expensive “non-flat machinable” classification.

The new world of Intelligent Mail®.
The Postal Service is in the process of introducing new Intelligent Mail® bar codes to enhance automation processing and provide additional services to mailers. The IMb can be used right now to claim automation discounts and to use OneCode ACS tracking services and OneCode ACS address correction services. The full Intelligent Mail® program will be launched in May 2009 with the introduction of basic and full-service IMb options. The full-service option, which requires additional electronic documentation for mailings and use of Intelligent Mail® tray and container bar codes, also will bring larger automation discounts (compared to basic service or use of POSTNET bar codes) beginning in fall 2009.

Use commingling to achieve greater presort discounts.
The Postal Service encourages more efficient mail handling by offering more price breaks for finer levels of mail sorting. However, to achieve the most advantageous five-digit presort discounts, you need a minimum of 150 mail pieces going to a single ZIP code. Often smaller mailing lists — especially test cells — don’t have much mail that crosses this threshold.

Ask your vendor about commingling your mail with other mail volume to improve postal presort qualification. The larger the commingle group, the more likely you’ll be able to meet the minimum requirements to claim the lowest rates.

Do your own trucking for drop-shipment discounts.
Still need to make your postage dollars go further? With rising costs for fuel and other transportation expenses, destination entry discounts provide significant incentives for mailers to drop-ship mail deeper into the postal network. Not only will an efficient postal logistics program provide meaningfully lower postage costs, it also will provide significantly faster in-home delivery and more precise targeting around your in-home date.

Kurt Ruppel is the marketing services manager at integrated direct-marketing services provider IWCO Direct. He can be reached at kurt.ruppel@iwco.com