Nonprofit organizations can only list, but not further advertise membership benefits in their direct mail solicitations for members under the U.S. Postal Service’s new eligibility rules for reduced-rate mailings.
The new rules, which go into effect today, won half-hearted praise from Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers executive director Neal Denton, and criticism from National Federation of Nonprofits executive director Lee Cassidy.
Saying he’s “not 100% satisfied” with the new rules, Denton said they’re “not perfect, but a lot better than they were before because the postal service has moved off the no-adjective rules, so now under these rules nonprofit mailers can use adjectives to describe benefits” to prospective and existing members.
Cassidy said the new rules “do not take into account the realities of recruiting new members. It says you can talk about membership benefits but you can’t describe them, [in effect] taking us back to the no adjective rule.”
He also criticized the USPS for “trying to make decisions based on completely superficial and therefore almost a wrong reading of what the [nonprofit] industry is all about.”
The USPS said the new rules “are intended to apply where the mail piece is intended only to attract or retain members, rather than to sell the products or services” described in it. Those letters, it added may invite recipients to ask for additional information which would have to be mailed at regular commercial rates.
While nonprofit mailers are permitted to mention membership benefits in the body of their solicitation letter, or list them on a separate sheet of paper, they cannot include any literature that advertises or provides detailed explanations of those benefits.
Any nonprofit group that includes the prohibited material will be required to pay the more expensive regular commercial rates for the mailing, according to the USPS.
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