Customized Postage: Can you use it for Fundraising?

Customized postage stamps are mostly used for pleasure or business purposes, but fund-raising is another direction you can go. No doubt you belong to organizations, or know of some, that need to raise funds to finance their projects and good works.

Where many fundraising efforts are a lot of work, setting up a customized postage fundraiser really isn’t bad, if someone familiar with digital photos and website creation will volunteer. Once the webpage is in place, all you have to do is keep the program’s existence in front of its target audience.

Here’s how to go about it:

Evaluate whether this idea would be a good match for your group. If your purpose is political or in any way controversial, then this idea probably wouldn’t work out, because there are regulations against promoting such things on customized postage. Another case in which it might not be very successful is if your target audience — that is, the people who are likely to purchase the postage — do not have much disposable income. Even though the postage isn’t terribly expensive, they do cost more than what you can get at the post office. It also helps to have an internet-savvy crowd, but nowadays that describes almost any group!

Now think about how you are going to actually sell the items. You could design and buy them and then have them for sale at meetings of the organization. They’d make great raffle items.

An easier method of selling them is online, if you have a page on a website and several photos that are directly related to the purpose of the group. For example, if it is a public library, you could have photos of the building, of people using the computers, of a children’s story hour going on, and so forth. The photos should have attractive colors and be ones that will read well when miniaturized for the customized postage.

Next, sign up as an affiliate at one of the several companies that manufacture the customized postage. Stamps.com is the leader in this field. They only do postage, though, so if you think you might like to expand to selling tshirts, mugs, and other items, another good choice is Cafepress, which works with stamps.com for postage but manufactures the other things itself.

On your webpage, you can do things in several different ways. I’ll use Stamps.com for this example. Start by putting thumbnail photographs on your webpage which show the photos you are using. Each thumbnail should link to a somewhat larger photo that will be used for the postage, so you will have to upload those too. Next, go to stamps.com and upload these larger photos and create several different customized postage choices pertinent to your organization. (You could just create one, but people are more likely to buy when they have several designs to choose from.) Take a screenshot on your computer which shows each one’s appearance, and put that on your page too.

Then describe to your readers what steps they will need to take to order their own customized postage. . Whenever someone orders through your link, you will earn a modest commission. But with a large enough group and enough publicity, the funds can add up.

An example of a group that did this is the University of New Hampshire Alumni Association. They show photos of an historic building on campus in spring, summer, and fall, plus a lovely autumnal scene, other buildings, and a student. They also have some tips for how alumni can use the customized postage, which helps people get enthusiastic.