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Nonprofit Reps Meet in Washington to Protest Mailing Rate Hike

The CEO of the San Diego Rescue Mission as well as 40 other representatives from the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions met in Washington D.C. last month to urge lawmakers to edit a piece of legislation that would reduce the postage discount enjoyed by nonprofit organizations, including churches. The bill, introduced by Darrell Issa (R-CA), intends to reform the Postal Service and was written with a provision that would reduce the current discount rate for nonprofit mailings by five percent each year for six years, effectively cutting the discount from 40 percent to 10 percent by 2018.

“If passed, this legislation would have a negative impact on our ministry and result in additional dollars going toward postage rather than feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and providing hope to those who are hurting,” said Herb Johnson, CEO of the San Diego Rescue Mission.  “A significant part of our funding is derived from direct mail, with a small percentage coming from online donations.  Under this new law, our postage costs could increase 257 percent.”

A spokesperson for Darrell Issa said normalizing rates could save the Postal Service an estimated $1.7 billion per year, but the Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers, which has been rallying members to protest this legislation, disagrees. Executive Director Anthony Conway told FOXNews in August, “You raise the prices for many nonprofits, for many of them it would probably mean you would use less mail…it’s not like they have extra money to pay for higher prices.”

In October a House committee amended the bill to include language that would delay the implementation of the provision by three years and changes the reduction of the discount rate to 20 percent rather than 10 percent. The bill can now be considered by the full House.

An alternate bill introduced in November would maintain nonprofit rate preferences while otherwise addressing the financial situation of the Postal Service but that bill failed cloture in late March.