Postal

The Direct Marketing Association and the DMA Nonprofit Federation today asked the Postal Regulatory Commission to dismiss the United States Postal Service’s request to increase postal rates by 10 times the rate permissible by law. The petition was filed by the Affordable Mail Alliance.

This action by USPS comes just three years after Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, which was supposed to prevent rate increases that exceed the rate of inflation.

As the nonprofit community determines just how much they might see postal rates increase next year, it's clear that Standard Mail Parcels will get hit with the largest increases – 23 percent – under an exigent rate case filed by the United States Postal Service (USPS) today.

How much the nonprofit rate for Standard Parcel or other categories used by nonprofits will increase is unclear, but USPS appears to be moving toward having categories cover more of their costs to handle.

During their presentation, “30 Ideas in 60 Minutes: Your Hour of Creative Power," at the Association of Fundraising Professionals Fund Raising Day in New York held last Friday, Jeff Brooks, creative director at TrueSense Marketing; Moira Kavanagh Crosby, president of MKDM; and Dennis Lonergan, president of Eidolon Communications, provided direct-response and online fundraising strategies to make your fundraising solicitations stand out from the crowd. Here, Crosby outlines her 10 strategies from the session.

During the first-ever FundRaising Success Virtual Conference & Expo held on May 20 (and available on-demand until Aug. 24), FS columnist and creative director at TrueSense Marketing Jeff Brooks provided 25 good ideas and even one bad one for fundraisers. Here is a rundown of his ideas from his session, “Feel the Power!”

November 6, 2009, The Independent — The threat of a Christmas postal strike was lifted last night following hours of talks between Royal Mail and the unions.

November 3, 2009, Third Sector — Charities are likely to lose millions in income if the postal strikes continue into the Christmas period, according to a report by the Institute of Fundraising.

September 2, 2009, MediaPost — According to the USPS Household Diary Study, in 2008, U.S. households received 148.6 billion pieces of mail, and sent 21.3 billion. Mail sent or received by households constituted 81% of total domestic mail in FY 2008. 56% of the mail households received was sent Standard Mail. Only 4% of household mail, and about 3% of total mail, was sent between households; the rest was sent between households and non-households.

WASHINGTON, August 5, 2009 — The U.S. Postal Service ended its third quarter (April 1 – June 30) with a net loss of $2.4 billion, including a non-cash adjustment that increased workers’ compensation expense by $807 million. Ongoing electronic diversion and the widespread economic recession continued to reduce mail volume, resulting in a $1.6 billion decrease in revenue for the quarter.

May 5, 2009 — The Nonprofit Federation of the Direct Marketing Association (DMANF) today announced a partnership with US Monitor, a mail monitor and list protection service,  to perform a first of its kind study to track delivery results within the United States Postal Service (USPS) nonprofit standard mail.

Postal angst? Here are four mailing trends to watch.