Nonprofit organizations that use the preferred nonprofit postal rates saw the sixth and final rate increase of the 1993 Revenue Forgone Reform Act implemented Oct. 4.
“For most nonprofits, this is a very slight rate increase of about 1 to 2 percent,” said Neal Denton, executive director of the Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers. “The real problem here is the administrative headache of changing your rates and then having to do it again on Jan. 10.”
A 10 percent increase for nonprofit Standard-A mailers goes into effect Jan. 10 along with increases in all other postal categories. According to Denton, instead of dumping a 30 percent increase on the nonprofits when the act was passed in 1993, Congress and nonprofits “bargained” for a deal that would have the increases take place over a five-year period.
“If a nonprofit group is going to look at this increase and feel like it is going to cause them some problems, they better look ahead and start getting ready for the January increase,” Denton said.
The Revenue Forgone Reform Act took away the appropriation Congress had given to the U.S. Postal Service to support the preferred rate structure for nonprofits. As a result, the amount that nonprofits and the USPS had to pay to support that structure went up.
