Postal

You’ve been hearing about proposed postal-rate increases; rules against personalizing mail pieces with your donor information and thanking donors; new, expensive accountability measures; and rules against e-mailing potential donors.

So is it time to hit the panic button? No, but this also is no time to allow yourself to continue on, unfamiliar with the legislation and other changes that could affect your organization’s fundraising efforts.

Following is an update on some of the issues the Direct Marketing Association Nonprofit Federation is monitoring.

For those of us who manage prospecting campaigns, there is a span of a month or two between ordering lists and dropping the direct-mail appeals in the mail stream. Usually that time is spent putting the finishing touches on the creative packages and getting the materials ready to go.

But while we fuss over the creative, something else is happening that’s every bit as important to the campaign. Down in the data crypt, thousands, and perhaps millions, of names from many sources are brought together for a complex process called a merge/purge.

The costs associated with telefundraising tend to be higher on a per-unit basis than direct mail or e-mail, maintains Joe White, vice president of sales and marketing for the Share Group, a full-service nonprofit agency based in Somerville, Mass. But when it comes to acquiring and upgrading monthly sustainers, the telephone is far and away the most cost effective, he says. White has added telefundraising to the marketing mix for myriad clients as a retention tool and has experienced varying degrees of success. “Increasingly, we have begun building phone-only files,” White says, “by calling direct mail donors who have not made a gift in

How will the U.S. Postal Service’s proposed rule regarding the differences between a personalized standard-mail piece and a personalized first-class piece affect direct mail fundraising?

The Senate’s Governmental Affairs Committee and the House of Representatives’ Committee on Government Reform hosted the final hearing on postal reform in late March. There, U.S. Postal Service officials had one last opportunity to present their proposals for reform of the USPS.

A change to the United States Postal Service’s Cooperative Mail Rule went into effect late last year, permitting nonprofit mailers to partner with third-party, commercial fundraising firms while still retaining the ability to mail at nonprofit postal rates. Previously, if a nonprofit group entered a joint venture with a for-profit company, any resulting mail would be ineligible for the nonprofit rate.

Saving money is imperative in today’s economy. With budgets being slashed and revenues down, nonprofit organizations are under tremendous pressure to cut costs. It’s a challenge, especially when trying to maintain an appropriate image.

In direct mail print production, doing more with less always has been the name of the game. But now more than ever, finding hidden savings means reviewing all the options — suppliers, equipment and the many factors that influence cost, including paper, sheet sizes and printing techniques.