Personalized mail: nonprofits win concessions from USPS.

Nonprofit mailers declared victory in efforts to get the United States Postal Service (USPS) to unmuddy the waters surrounding what constitutes Nonprofit Standard rate mail and what is First Class rate mail when it comes to personalized mail.

The USPS and representatives of the nonprofit sector's mail community hammered out what Neal Denton, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers, called a "fair agreement."

What began one year ago as an effort by the USPS to clarify rules concerning personalized mail--a rule slated to take effect June 1--quickly turned murky, leaving nonprofits to scratch their heads trying to figure out what the rule and clarification really meant.

It all started with commercial mailers, Denton said. "These large commercial mailers had blurred the lines over what could be sent Standard rate and what had to be sent First Class rate. All of a sudden we (the nonprofit sector) were caught up in a snap trap that wasn't meant for us."

Had the rule, as originally proposed by the USPS gone into effect, nonprofit mailers, who pay about 13 cents per piece according to Denton, would have been required to pay the First Class rate of 37 cents per piece.

Geoffrey W. Peters, pro bono general counsel for the Vienna, Va.-based American Charities for Reasonable Fundraising Regulation (ACFRFR), said the rule as promulgated "would have amounted to a 300 percent increase in postage costs for nonprofits."

Senny Boone, executive director of the DMA Nonprofit Federation, stated that, "Without this agreement, nonprofits would have had to move many of their mail pieces to the First Class rate, or not mail those pieces at all. These mail pieces would range from pieces soliciting prayers, advocacy, university registrations, volunteer work, membership requests, and many other common requests."

The April 28 agreement "protects the ability of nonprofit organizations to send personal communications to prospective supporters, constituents, members and donors at the Nonprofit Standard rate instead of at First Class rates of postage," Denton wrote in a statement. "It's a crisp and clear definition."

According to sources at the meeting, a "solicitation for a donation may include any request for monetary or nonmonetary support for a political cause or a nonprofit mailer's exempt purpose." Several examples of what will be considered Nonprofit Standard rate, according to the source include:

* A request for additional donations or volunteer time;

* A request that the recipient renew a membership or join the mailer's organization;

* A request that the recipient make a donation by visiting the mailer's Web site;

* An offer or solicitation, enclosed in a mail piece acknowledging the payment of a contribution or membership dues, that invites the addressee to purchase goods or services available from the mailer or offered as a membership benefit; and,

* A request that the recipient return an opinion survey, petition, open letter, a note or care.

What happened, Denton said, was that the USPS tried to change something that nonprofits had been doing for years.

To better serve their donors and attract new ones, nonprofits have been personalizing their mailings by using the person's name and address and including information about the person's last donation to the charity along with the addressee's account number, and file number. Over the past few years, technology advances have enabled mailers to personalize even more than they had previously.

Because of these changes, the USPS proposed last year a rule change it hoped would clarify what constituted personalized mail.

When nonprofits realized how serious the impact would be on their cost of mailing, they began lobbying the USPS telling it that rules the mailers had been following all along were clear and the new ones and the clarification muddied things up and seemed to treat the nonprofits unfairly.

Based on the rule proposed last year, nonprofits sent thousands of examples of what they wanted to mail to donors to the USPS Pricing and Classification Service Center in New York for review to see under which class it fell, Nonprofit Standard rate or First Class rate. The center was swamped, Denton said. Jerry McKiernan, a USPS spokesman said the New York center received "a significant amount," of examples.

A group of six umbrella organizations, the Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers, the Association of Fundraising Professionals, the Direct Marketing Association Nonprofit Federation, the Direct Marketing Association of Washington, D.C., the Direct Marketing Fundraisers Association and the National Catholic Development Conference, lobbied the USPS for a clarification of the rule.

Sr. Georgette Lehmuth, president and CEO of the NCDC, said she is "grateful that the post office was willing to sit down with us and hear our story." The USPS didn't really understand how nonprofits operate or their mission, she said. "We needed to explain more clearly what we do." They needed to understand "about our stewardship and our relationship with our donors." She also thanked Postmaster General/CEO John E. Potter and his staff for working with the coalition.

Denton noted that Sr. Georgette has a "strong relationship with the postmaster general," and played a big role in getting things worked out.

DMANF's Boone called the final talks with the USPS, "very effective." The USPS seemed to understand the pressures that nonprofits are under and the new ruling will offer a "safe harbor for nonprofit mailers," she said.

"It was a very productive meeting," McKiernan said of the April 28 session and added that it is "gratifying" that the two sides could come to an agreement.