October 3, 2017

The proposed 2018 rates will not incorporate the USPS proposal to further hike nonprofit Marketing Mail rates well above inflation by reversing the way it calculates the ratio to commercial rates. The action at the PRC continues.

The USPS proposed the change on July 31, and 87 organizations submitted comments in mid-September. Of the 87, 85 oppose the USPS proposal, and two are for it—the American Catalog Mailers Association (ACMA) and the Public Representative of the PRC. The catalog group presumably sees a chance to slightly lower their rates as an offset to much higher nonprofit rates. We are not sure how the “public” is aided by massive increases in postal for nonprofits. That’s why the Alliance and so many individual nonprofits and their suppliers wrote in opposition.

It also is very telling that no other commercial mailing group or mailer wrote in support of the USPS proposal. In fact, one group representing both commercial and nonprofit mailers, the DMA and DMA Nonprofit Federation, wrote in strong opposition to the proposal.

We surmise that the vast majority of commercial mailers concluded that the value and diversity of nonprofit mail in the mailstream, along with the much-needed good performed by America’s charities, far outweigh the slight advantage in postage that ACMA is striving for.