November 30, 2000 | Read Time: 3 minutes
By JENNIFER MOORE
The Postal Rate Commission has issued proposed mailing rates for nonprofit organizations based on a new change in federal law.
The proposed rates are significantly lower than those sought by the U.S. Postal Service at the beginning of the year,
largely because of the new law that Congress passed in the fall.
The new federal law guarantees that nonprofit groups will always receive a fixed-percentage discount on their postage based on commercial rates.
Under the law — and the rates proposed by the commission — most letters sent by nonprofit groups will cost roughly 40 percent less than the price charged to commercial mailers; the discount for periodicals will be 5 percent.
The proposed cost to a charity to mail a standard fund-raising letter, for example, would be 15.5 cents under the Postal Rate Commission’s recommendations, or 38 percent less than the proposed 25 cents per letter a business would pay.
In a statement that accompanied the proposed rates, Edward J. Gleiman, chairman of the Postal Rate Commission, said that “nonprofit mailers would have been burdened with exceptionally high increases but for the fact that Congress passed legislation.”
The Postal Rate Commission’s proposed rates must now be approved by the Postal Service’s Board of Governors, which is scheduled to meet on December 5. The board will also decide when new rates for mailings sent by all types of organizations will take effect, which could be as early as January.
A table showing how the new rates would affect different types of nonprofit mailings appears below.
PROPOSED RATES FOR STANDARD NONPROFIT MAIL
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Note: Letters are defined as pieces 6-1/8 inches by 11-1/2 inches or smaller, not thicker than 1/4 inch, and weighing no more than 3.3 ounces.
1 Under current and proposed rates, ZIP-code discounts under the basic rate are available for mail sorted to the first 3 or 5 digits.
2 Must be in batches of 125 or more pieces per carrier route and sorted according to the “walk sequence” of addresses on the route.
3 Mail that is sent to 75 percent of the addresses or 90 percent of the residences on a carrier’s route. Must be sorted according to the “walk sequence” of addresses on the route.
4 Must have 150 pieces to qualify for this rate.
5 21 centers that process mail for large regions.
6 More than 200 facilities that process mail in metropolitan regions.
7 Discount available only for mail that already qualifies as carrier route, high density, or saturation mail.
