Readers wishing to comment on the proposed postal rate hikes
should contact the Postal Regulatory Commission by phone at
202/789-6800; by mail at Public Affairs and Government
Relations, Postal Regulatory Commission, 901 New York Ave.,
N.W., Suite 200, Washington, D.C. 20268-0001; or by e-mail
through this link.
WASHINGTON – It couldn’t come at a worse time.
That’s the message coming from Catholic and other charitable
organizations, magazine and newspaper publishers and direct
mailers in response to the postal rate hikes proposed by the
U.S. Postal Service for next year.
“If the rates increase 5 to 10 percent, some organizations
have already guesstimated that their income would go down at
least 10 percent,” said Franciscan Sister Georgette Lehmuth,
president and CEO of the National Catholic Development
Conference.
Originally called the Catholic Fundraising Conference, the
organization based in Hempstead, N.Y., brings together about
300 Catholic dioceses, religious institutes, educational
institutions, social services or health-related groups,
shrines and pious societies for education, networking and
advocacy on their common interests, including postal
rates.
The postal service announced a wide-ranging set of proposed
price increases July 6, averaging about 5 percent, to cover
part of a projected $7 billion loss in 2011. The increases —
which cover first-class and advertising mail, periodicals,
packages and other services — have to be approved by the
Postal Regulatory Commission within 90 days in order to take
effect Jan. 2, 2011.
Under the plan, first-class mail would increase from 44 to 46
cents for the first ounce and first-class postcards would go
from 28 to 30 cents. Periodicals would receive an 8 percent
increase, catalog mailings would go up 5.1 percent, standard
mail parcels would increase about 23 percent and
media/library mail would be subject to a 7 percent rise.
Also under consideration to cover the projected deficit is an
end to Saturday mail delivery, but that change would require
the approval of Congress and few think such a decision is
likely in an election year.
The National Catholic Development Conference — which
includes such heavy hitters as Catholic Charities USA and
Catholic Relief Services but also many small charities —
joined with scores of other mail-dependent organizations in a
protest of the rate hikes organized by the Affordable Mail
Alliance.
To grant the requested price hikes, the Postal Regulatory
Commission must waive a rule requiring that postal rate
increases stay in line with inflation — which would keep the
increases under 1 percent, the alliance said.
The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 limits
such waivers to “extraordinary or exceptional” circumstances,
which the alliance said would include another anthrax attack
or a major natural disaster, but not an economic recession or
bad business practices.
“The first rule of business is if you’re in a hole, stop
digging,” said Tony Conway, executive director of the
Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers, at a July 6 news briefing.
“Increasing rates won’t put the Postal Service back on track
— it will just drive more customers away, making their
situation even worse,” he added. “USPS needs to stop avoiding
the difficult decisions and stop taking out their problems on
the customers they desperately need.”
Tom Schmidt, president of Carroll Publishing, which publishes
the Spanish-language El Pregonero and the English-language
Catholic Standard newspapers in the Archdiocese of
Washington, said the increases, if approved, might cause
Catholic and other publications to move away more quickly
from a print-only model.
He told Catholic News Service July 7 that Carroll Publishing
already has been wrestling with ways to “reduce the extent we
rely on print” and, like other dioceses around the country,
has been “looking for better ways to use a strained resource
pool.”
Schmidt, who chairs the Catholic Press Association’s advocacy
committee, said postal rate increases might “hasten people’s
decisions about what sort of mix they want for their delivery
channels.”
In the case of Carroll Publishing, if the mail rates for
periodicals go up 8 percent as planned, “that’s $25,000 I
don’t have,” he added.
But Sister Georgette said the situation is even more dire for
charities that rely on direct mailings for most of their
donations.
“The Catholic community, like the rest of the nonprofit
world, depends on mail as the primary way that people
donate,” she told CNS July 7.
Citing a new study by the Boston College Center on Wealth and
Philanthropy that said U.S. charitable giving was down about
5 percent in 2009, representing a total decrease of $11.2
billion, she said “things are just beginning to turn
around.”
But charities that provide social services, in particular,
“are caught in a big Catch-22,” Sister Georgette said,
because state and federal funding has dried up while the
recession has brought in more people seeking assistance.
Of the proposed postal rate increases, she said, “This is
just the worst time for this to happen to us. It would make
it much more difficult to support our ministries.”
Sister Georgette said studies have shown that those who
support charities through direct-mail solicitations will not
move easily to other types of appeals.
“There is something about holding a piece of paper in your
hands and reading a story with pictures that encourages”
people to give, she said.
Even the massive amounts of money given by Internet, phone or
text-message donations after Hurricane Katrina or the
earthquake in Haiti would not have been possible unless
charitable organizations “were already in place to be able to
commit money to the services needed” in the disaster areas,
Sister Georgette said.
And many of those organizations were built — and will
continue to rely — on donations received from direct-mail
solicitations, she added.
