Direct Mail

Sometimes, good direct mail is just downright ugly. On purpose. Maybe the goal is for the piece to look inexpensive and put together on the fly with whatever office supplies are at hand — or not done by a professional graphic designer. It implies frugality and no dime wasted on fancy, artistic, matchy-matchy stationery.

A look at the Direct Marketing Fundraisers Association Package of the Year winner: the Fountain House Flying Cat Pads and Cards renewal campaign, with Amy Tripi of Tripi Consulting.

Once in a while, get out of the office. Don't go visit your family or fellow laborers in the fundraising profession. Talk to people who could be donors to your organization and who don't know their way around a direct-mail package. Find out what they are reading and doing. They may just give you a hint about a new place to look for donors.

A House of Representatives panel on Wednesday approved a bill that would end Saturday mail delivery by the U.S. Postal Service and establish a process that could lead to worker layoffs at the cash-strapped agency.

The Postal Service has seen mail volumes plummet in recent years as more customers send email and pay bills online.

The agency has said it needs to reduce payrolls by about 220,000 by 2015 and is studying thousands of post offices and about 300 processing facilities for possible closure.

President Barack Obama says the U.S. Postal Service should be allowed to reduce mail delivery to five days a week to help cut its massive losses. The Postal Service lost $8.5 billion last year and is facing even more red ink this year as the Internet siphons off large amounts of first-class mail and the weak economy reduces advertising mail.

Here's an interesting development from the world of direct-mail testing for acquisition — a process that allows organizations to test various elements of their direct-mail packages without having to actually send out the packages.

The latest mailing by the Nature Conservancy to reach Grand Control status (in the mail for three years or more) is a membership package, mailed in a No. 12 envelope, that has been in the mail since 2007.

This sustainer/upgrade effort from Russ Reid on behalf of World Vision U.S. is engaging, colorful and just plain fun … and the 2011 Package of the Year.

During the Nonprofit Organization of the Year Award Luncheon at the 2011 New York Nonprofit Conference last Wednesday, the talk prior to the Human Rights Campaign accepting the honor centered around the measures to eliminate nonprofit mail discounts and restrict charitable deductions.

With the United States Postal Service looking to downsize, some of America's favorite nonprofits that rely heavily on direct mail fundraising could become a new kind of charity case.

That’s because legislation to restructure the money-losing agency includes a provision that would eliminate reduced postage rates for nonprofit mail.

Under Rep. Darrell Issa’s bill, the 40 percent discount that nonprofits have been getting for the postage rates on their mailings since Congress authorized it in 1951 would be reduced by 5 percent a year, and to 10 percent after six years.