How You Mail Your Proposals Can Make a Big Difference
The United States Postal Service is reliable, usually, almost all the time… But what about when they do lose a letter, or more important, your grant proposal?
It can happen, and it just did for one of my clients. I was expecting grant notification about a month earlier so called the foundation manager. They said they had never received the proposal, and had already made all their grant awards for the year. I had mailed the proposal regular mail without delivery confirmation.
I thanked the foundation manager, and e-mailed the proposal for their records – I had included a lot of good program results along with the proposal and wanted them to have that information.
I also leaned a big lesson, and I will NEVER mail a grant proposal or report again by regular mail. So, what are the options? FedEx is discouraged by many foundations because it is expensive, unnecessary (you didn’t need to wait until the last minute to submit the proposal), and doesn’t show that you are a good steward of your donors’ investments. Express Mail Service through the post office is also frowned upon for the same reasons.
That leaves Priority Mail Service with delivery confirmation. And, if you’re like me and don’t like waiting in line at the post office, you don’t have to! You can print labels with postage from home, and mail from your very own mailbox. All you need to do is set up an account at USPS.com, pick up a stack of Priority Mail Flat Rate Envelopes from your post office (no waiting in line for that), and you’re ready to go.
You don’t even need a postal scale because virtually all of your mailings will be less than 13 oz. and can be delivered for $4.75 with delivery confirmation. The best part is that you’ll even save money by mailing from home – the post office charges $4.95 for the same service. I guess they don’t like the long lines either!
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Lynn deLearie, owner of Lynn deLearie Consulting, LLC, helps nonprofit organizations develop, enhance and expand grant programs, and helps them secure funding from foundations and corporations. She can be contacted at lynn.delearie@gmail.com..
Hank Lewis with Development Consultant Associates has over thirty years as a fundraising consultant and is a specialist in Board and Leadership Development, Capital Campaign, Bequest Program and Major Gifts.
Lynn,
With all of the abuse heaped without mercy upon the USPS, it is good to know of your rewarding experience. I share your enthusiasm for the USPS and its Priority Mail, mail-from-home process, via their well-designed website. Finally, it was something I “discovered” several months ago.
I use their flat-rate envelopes and boxes. For those of you not able to fit proposals (or anything else) with more size than the envelopes can hold, the medium flat rate boxes are great. To fill in the weight requirement on the shipping form, I use a simple, inexpensive, scale (bought for weighing pasta), so there is no problem citing any weight number as asked for in the postal pickup process. They just want to know “if they should need to bring a truck.”
When the envelope or box cannot fit into your regular mail box for routine pickup, the USPS process as well allows for simple instructions to be given for the mail person to pickup in some other location on the premises where you specify, and on which day.
Let’s hear it for the USPS when it is justly deserved.
https://sss-web.usps.com/cns/landing.do