With the rise of the Internet and social media, nonprofits in Delaware rely less now on the U.S. Postal Service than they did several years ago, but they can’t live without it.
Some examples:
The Delaware Money School, which offers free classes on money management and financial literacy topics, has cut its mailing of 14,000-plus brochures from four times a year to three, said Ronni Cohen, executive director of the Delaware Financial Literacy Institute. (Another 7,500 to 8,000 copies of each brochure are distributed at libraries and through other non-postal channels.) The organization also sends email blasts — opened by 15 to 30 percent of recipients, Cohen said — so “we would find it difficult to drop the hard copy [of the brochures] and maintain attendance.” With printing and distribution costs rising, she said the organization will ask members whether they would prefer receiving program information via email instead of the printed brochures.
The Blood Bank of Delaware has been collecting email addresses from its members but the postal service remains its primary means of communication, said Howard L. Keener, senior manager for business and community engagement. A significant segment of the Blood Bank’s members are in the 65-plus age group and does not have email addresses, he said. The Blood Bank has moved to a “print on demand” system, ordering only enough copies of printed materials as it needs to send out at a particular time, and is reviewing policies on the frequency of sending out notices for dues payments and blood donations, he said.
The Friends of Rockwood, the 135-member organization dedicated to the preservation of the 19th-century Rockwood Mansion, owned and operated by New Castle County, now relies primarily on email to send newsletters and bulletins to its members, but still uses the mail to reach supporters who don’t have email addresses, said June Zappa, the group’s president. It uses the postal service for other important communications, like mailing grant applications to foundations, she said.
