Business Reply Mail

Nicole McMorrow · March 2016

Does anyone still use Business Reply Mail on their remit envelopes? Seems a bit old fashioned to me.

Cindy Avery · March 2016

Yes, we do. In fact, we have been experimenting with providing a postage-paid BRE versus a reply envelope that the donor stamps versus not providing an reply envelope at all. The variable is the scope and audience of the solicitation. We then try to gauge whether or not the response is up or down based on the results of the same solicitation in a previous year. Out curiousity, why do you think it is old fashioned and what alternative(s) are you considering?

Jen Claudy · March 2016

We do, but I wish we didn't. It's expensive, which most people don't realize. I think $1.20 in postage for each one mailed back...more if a disgruntled person stuffs it with something heavy and mails it back just to cost you money and hassle...or like in one case, someone mailed it back with a note to "remove me from your mailing list" with no indication of who the person was... And the post office (or letter carrier, not sure which) sometimes lets them collect for 2-3 days before delivering a stack of them, which causes additional delay in getting ack letters out.

Almost 2 years ago we put a BRE back in our newsletter. At the time, I found several articles online that basically said, "if you don't already use a remittance envelope in your newsletter, don't start!" Well, we started. I don't think we've come close to breaking even on the cost in money (the printer for the envelopes and the bindery to stitch them in, plus the additional in return postage for those that do mail them back) or time (the bindery step adds significantly to the production timeline). Unless you count one loyal donor who just happened to use the newsletter BRE for his regular donation...which we would have otherwise received in a regular envelope or by hand when he came to a meeting the following week. My recommendation was to use the back cover of the newsletter to promote online giving, and provide a tear-off piece to mail in for donors not doing the online thing (of which we have a lot). Especially since we normally end up sending a solicitation letter around the same time, with a #9 BRE in it, to the same folks.

However, I would be very interested in seeing the results of your research, Cindy.

Aldera Chisholm · March 2016

We use BRE, but perhaps have unusually good luck. One out of 200 responses will have a reply card with Do not contact me written on it, and once last year I got one back with nothing at all in it. They are expensive, for sure but for us - it works out. About one in 20 of my responders will marker out the BRE insignia and put their own stamp on there. I have two donors every year who also give us a pre-stamped envelope for us to mail their receipt back in.

We no longer do a paper newsletter, but like Jen we went to a tear-off portion with info about online giving on the few physical pieces we would mail out, like an annual calendar.

I have one very lovely donor who always gave me weird amounts like $100.81 (using our reply card/env) which I couldn't quite figure out until I chatted with him and discovered he was giving his gift, plus the going rate for a stamp!

Long story short - I think it's worth testing if you have the ability to do some segmenting.

JoAnn Strommen · March 2016

Interesting question. I don't consider it old fashioned. Our Y does not use them due to the cost. When I started here, I convinced them we at least needed to include a reply envelope which wasn't done at that time. I think enclosing an envelope of some type is key. Have even heard comments from a school vice-principal that if there wasn't a return envelope included they weren't going to be sending a gift. Most donors recognize that the business reply or return postage paid envelope cost the org money. Used to see lots of envelopes come with "your stamp with save us cost of postage" printed in the stamp area.

I was going to reply to the post yesterday but wanted to check something out. We throw all the reply envelopes we receive at home in a drawer as my husband uses them for projects at the youth org he works for. Most do not have the business reply format - seemed to be mostly on life insurance companies wanting our business (assuming for profit company). Saw only one very large non-profit that had return postage paid. I'd say over 90% of the envelopes in my drawer I would need to put on my stamp.

If your org wants to pay for it - go for it. Extra perk for donor but don't really think it's necessary for non=profits IMHO.

Gracie Schild · March 2016

I don't think BRM is so much "old-fashioned" as it is wasteful, and donors know it. We got rid of BRM a couple years ago. It was in place when I started here in 2012 and we continued to pay the ridiculous fees for about 18 months and then we stopped doing it. It caused some problems with people using the envelopes after we had shut down the account (which meant some VERY delayed checks), but otherwise we were glad to be done with it. The extra process and time to get reimbursed for the BREs that had stamps on them was a nightmare and NOT worth it!!

One weird thing that came up when we got rid of it was a change in zip code. We had been merrily using the BRM zip code on everything - letterhead, business cards, etc. A printing house noticed that the Plus 4 (the zip code, not the pants style!) didn't match our PO Box zip. The Plus 4 is what tells the automated system at the Post Office that it's handling a piece of BRM. We can tell which letterhead is now scrap based on the fact that it has the wrong zip. So beware!! - but get rid of the money wasting BRM!!

Faith Murray · March 2016

I do not consider them old-fashioned, but they are probably not entirely necessary either. We use CRE envelopes (no postage paid) in all of our appeal mailings, and only use BREs in our newsletter. We have not found it particularly expensive. We spend a bit over $1000 a year in BRE charges (account maintenance plus postage charges) and one year we netted $70,000 through our newsletter response device. We keep the BRE in the newsletter (but not our appeals) because although most of our donors are fine adding their own stamp, we do have a few donors who specifically request a postage-paid envelope. We feel this keeps a happy medium.

Nicole S · March 2016

BREs can definitely be expensive. I'm often surprised though at the number of donors I have who put a stamp on theirs. We periodically return these to the post office for credit on our account.

I have also found that once we started using solicit codes and excluding donors and other who do not want to recieve mail, the amount of envelopes coming back with remove requests was almost none. I might do a mailing to 10k people and get 2-5 requests to remove at the most and many times 0-1. Which I definitley don't mind -- they don't want our mail and aren't going to give and I don't want to keep mailing them.

Whether pre-paid or one the donor needs to stamp, I think a return envelope is key in anything you want a donor to send back. Even if it's just something I need a board member to sign. I know my chances of getting it back, and quickly, are much better. I worked at an org that didn't include any envelope at all in some mailings and the response was so low you wouldn't have even known that we had just mailed out an appeal! Their philosphy was that donors would provide their own envelopes or just fax back the form. Fax! Seriously in this decade... I sent the same mailing out the next year with an envelope and there was actually a response. I've also noticed that when I have sent a reminder postcard most of the replies still come in the original remit envelope.

Why make it any harder on your donors? The less they have to think about it the easier it is for all of you. You wouldn't send out an email without including a link, would you?

Jen Claudy · March 2016

To Nicole's point, I would certainly never advise not using a reply envelope of some sort in any appeal mailings...just a SAE instead of BRE. I would prefer to use self-addressed #9 reply envelopes in appeals/mailings and then create some sort of self-mailer out of the back cover of our newsletter. (Tear off the back page, fill it out, fold it up, tape it closed, add a stamp, and mail it back...for the number we get back, I don't think the BRE stitched into the newsletter is worth the cost.)

Nicole S · March 2016

Jen - It's interesting that you had it stitched in. I have never needed to do that.The folding and little tape thing for our newsletters seemed to hold everything in pretty securely.

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