Talking Back: Postal Rulings

Xenia “Senny” Boone, executive director of the Direct Marketing Association Nonprofit Federation, Washington, D.C.: “As you can imagine, the USPS has seen an increased use of personalization. What they’re trying to do is find a way to get their arms around this, so direct mailers can still use personalization and not get booted into the higher first-class rate. The [USPS] believes that the existing test is not sufficient, and what they’re trying to do is create a ‘bright-line’ test. … That’s where [the DMA] comes into conflict with the accounting standards. Many times [nonprofits] can’t have an exclusive purpose; they’re possibly educating or advocating in that mail piece. … The proposed rule is really leaving a lot to the discretion of the USPS at the local level to determine if that mail piece should go first-class rate or nonprofit [rate]. That’s a huge leap in rate for nonprofits. We don’t see a public-interest justification in the Postal Service’s articulation of its reasons for this new rule-making. We certainly don’t think [the USPS] was intending to hurt nonprofits as far as the accounting standards go, but it’s going to be a huge issue if the [USPS] sticks by this rule, because it will boot a lot of nonprofit mail into the higher rate, and that’s unacceptable.”