In my many years working with the USPS and the mailing industry, I have encountered a lack of education and understanding about the value that nonprofit mail brings – to the USPS, to the industry, and to Americans. I invite you to take a few minutes to look at all the reasons to love and support nonprofit mail.
In 2024, charitable giving in the United States reached an estimated $592.5 billion, which was a 6.3% increase in current dollars (a 3.3% increase after adjusting for inflation), compared to 2023 when charitable giving was $557.16 billion, which was a 1.9% increase in current dollars (but a decline of 2.1% when adjusted for inflation). According to MR Benchmarks, for every $1 raised by nonprofit organizations, about 78 cents was through direct mail. This makes sense when you analyze the demographics of where the majority of charitable donations come from – older Americans, who we know react positively to mail compared to email or social media alternatives.
That doesn’t mean that younger Americans do not support nonprofits – they do! Research shows that the average annual household charitable giving by generation ranges from $481 from Millennials to $1,367 for the Silent Generation. So while the amount of annual giving grows with age, there is no generation that does not contribute significantly. According to The Rome Group’s 2025 Philanthropic Landscape Survey, direct mail was one of the top three most effective fundraising strategies.
Although nonprofit organizations are exploring and using electronic alternatives, direct mail remains a force to be reckoned with in the nonprofit world. So nonprofit mail has a distinct value to Americans because it is one of the best proven methods of fundraising for nonprofits whose services benefit millions of people. According to the National Council of Nonprofits, “America’s 1.3 million charitable nonprofits feed, heal, shelter, educate, nurture, and inspire people of every age, gender, race, and socioeconomic status, from coast to coast, border to border, and beyond.”
Nonprofit organizations themselves benefit the US economy, with over 1.8 million recognized 501(c)3 organizations in the US employing over 13 million people, representing 9.9% of all private sector employment. As of 2022, nonprofit employment equaled that from the manufacturing industry segment in the US and was second only to the retail and food industries.
Of course, because direct mail is such a valuable tool for nonprofit organizations, it makes them particularly vulnerable to postage increases, and particularly dependent on how the USPS serves its captive monopoly customers. Even with Congressionally-mandated lower nonprofit postage rates, the frequency and magnitude of postage rate increases the past few years have had a very negative impact on nonprofit organizations’ ability to use direct mail. Nonprofit mail volumes declined by an average of 4.5% annually from FY2021 to FY2024, compared to an average decline of 1.7% annually in the prior 15 years before FY2021.
Another major misconception about nonprofit mail is that because the law mandates that nonprofits pay lower postage rates, that nonprofit mail is not valuable to the USPS. First and foremost, ALL mail volume retention and growth is critical to the USPS’s financial future. For FY2024, $1.85 billion of the USPS’ revenue came from nonprofit mail pieces, which represented over 11% of total revenue from Marketing Mail and Periodicals. And that doesn’t include the mail in other categories that is generated as a result of a direct mail donation or subscription response.
Most nonprofit mail pieces that are successful in bringing in charitable donations result in more mail pieces being sent that are not at nonprofit postage rates. Subscriptions generate First-Class Mail pieces for bill payment and Business Reply Mail (BRM) pieces, and charitable donations are returned via First-Class Mail or Business Reply Mail pieces. There is no separate tracking of this mail volume by the USPS to attribute it to nonprofit direct mail, but nonprofit organizations know the postage they spend on mail that is not at nonprofit rates, and it is significant.
Nonprofit organizations also help support the USPS and the mailing industry by being active on the Mailers Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC), Postal Customer Councils (PCCs), at the National Postal Forum, and more. Nonprofits work to spread the word on the value of mail, and they support USPS promotions and incentives as well as workshare initiatives.
Nonprofit mail is also important to the USPS and the mailing industry at large because it connects the over 10 million Americans who donate each year to their mail. Nonprofit direct mail has a high response rate, which means recipients are opening and reading nonprofit mail – and the rest of their mail. All things that keep Americans interested in mail and going to the mailbox should be valued and retained – after all, no one is rushing to their mailbox if it only has bills in it.
Nonprofit mail… connecting with Americans for good.
Kathleen J. Siviter is the Executive Director of the Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers (ANM) as well as President of Postal Consulting Services Inc. (PCSi), and she has over 30 years’ experience in the postal industry. She has worked for the U.S. Postal Service, Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom), National Association of Presort Mailers (NAPM) and others. She has also worked with PostalVision 2020, an initiative designed to engage stakeholders in discussions about the future of the American postal system.
This article originally appeared in the November/December, 2025 issue of Mailing Systems Technology.
