How to use Postal Service to find a forwarding address?

With the new church guideliens (1 Dec. 2012) for locating lost members and transferring records we are instructed to follow nine steps before transferring the records.

Has any one had success in using the postal service, step 2, to locate addresses of members? If you were successful how did you go about doing it?

Looking online at the United States Postal Service website, it appears you can request the information but you have to pay or you can try sending a piece of mail and ask that the forwarding address be sent to you.

This was one of the purposes of the annual Christmas letter mailed by the bishopric in a prior ward I lived in. Of course, the main purpose was to communicate to all the members, but since they used the Bishop's envelopes (which had the "address correction requested" notation on them) they usually received a few back with updated address information.

In a perfect ward, every family will have a home teacher who goes every month and will always know where they move to. I haven't lived in any perfect ward yet...

jtm24 wrote:or you can try sending a piece of mail and ask that the forwarding address be sent to you.

That's the way I think it's usually done. Write a letter or send a flyer of a upcoming activity. Just make sure to follow the post office standards. Personally, I think I'd go for "Return Service Requested".

The "address correction requested" mentioned previously is an outdated notation.

russellhltn wrote:Personally, I think I'd go for "Return Service Requested".

...which is exactly what is preprinted on all official ward and stake envelopes in the US.

My apologies for the wrong term - however my point was that we used the pre-printed envelopes which can be sometimes successful in locating were someone moved to. At times it has been difficult to find someone home so knowing if they are still living there or not is not a straightforward proposition.

I have found it useful to use a USPS-licensed commercial database service before we do our year-end mailing to the full ward roster to preprocess the list against the National Change of Address database.

You get back a file with more information that you get just with the physical mailing -- which you are obliged to execute anyway when you agree to the Postal Service's terms and conditions of using the NCOALink service. The physical mailing with the Return Service Requested -- of the remaining addresses not culled out for forwarding or non-deliverability in the database preprocessing -- typically yields a few additional returns.

The input file can be a CSV exported from MLS. The service's output file also yields a list of your input addresses standardized. And if your input address is undeliverable, you find out why in more detail. There is a bit of a learning curve to analyze the output, for which you need some basic skills with a spreadsheet or database program. And, of course, you still have to key the moves and changes back into MLS.

I submit a file of adult members to be processed by the service, crunch their output file and do the physical mailing by recombining the names into households in the form, "John & Jane Doe." This step is not required, but it helps maximize the forwarding hit rate and minimize postage.

There are several such licensed service providers that handle the NCOALIink database services, which you can easily find by Googling that term. I have used Anchor Computer for the past several years. Some of the extra cost of the $75-80 service is recouped in postage by not mailing to old or invalid addresses. From a clerical point of view, I think it is the most productive expenditure we make all year.

How much might the cost be, say, at the stake level? About the same or that many times more?

jwtaber wrote:How much might the cost be, say, at the stake level? About the same or that many times more?

With the vendor I have used, the database-processing cost for a stake-scale file would be about the same as for a ward-scale file. That is because the major component of the database cost is a $75 per-batch minimum for three-day turnaround service.

But remember that the USPS terms oblige the customer to use this for purposes of preprocessing a list for physical mailing. The biggest cost by far is the postage for that. Of course, it would be more cost-effective to spread the $75 minimum over a larger batch, if the stake is doing a mass mailing to all households.

RossEvans wrote:Some of the extra cost of the $75-80 service is recouped in postage by not mailing to old or invalid addresses.

There is no way my ward would ever recoupe that cost in postage. For the one mass mailing we did last year 245 households, I only had 8-10 returned with incorrect address. That is a total cost of $4.50. There is a big difference between $4.50 and $80.00.

RossEvans wrote:From a clerical point of view, I think it is the most productive expenditure we make all year.

From a financial point of view that's the most unproductive expenditure you made all year. A big waste of LUBA that could have been put to better use.

Gary_Miller wrote:

RossEvans wrote:Some of the extra cost of the $75-80 service is recouped in postage by not mailing to old or invalid addresses.

There is no way my ward would ever recoupe that cost in postage. For the one mass mailing we did last year 245 households, I only had 8-10 returned with incorrect address. That is a total cost of $4.50. There is a big difference between $4.50 and $80.00.

RossEvans wrote:From a clerical point of view, I think it is the most productive expenditure we make all year.

From a financial point of view that's the most unproductive expenditure you made all year. A big waste of LUBA that could have been put to better use.

We don't do it to save money. We deliberately spend a modest amount to help us realize benefits -- more efficient management of the membership records of our very large ward (approximately 550 households right now with a lot of turnover and many inactives). Trying to keep that membership roster scrubbed is a very significant and ongoing problem, and we consider the money well spent to minister to the membership and do our part to keep up their records.

Another scrap of advice regarding mass mailings: Postcards are much cheaper than 1st Class envelopes. I have clerked in wards that did their year-end mailings with fancy, custom-printed LDS-themed Christmas cards. Between the high cost of those specialty items and the full 1st Class postage, this was a very expensive undertaking. We now just mail custom postcards showing a meetinghouse locator map and meeting times for the upcoming year, and the total cost is about 70-75 percent less.

In addition to mass mailings, it is useful to mail something to new move-ins immediately if they have not shown up in church meetings. A significant number of those names and addresses typically turn out to be out of date or undeliverable, and it is better to learn this right away. Since the number of these mystery move-ins will be much smaller, it is more feasible to mail a 1st Class envelope with more welcome-to-the-ward information such as leadership contact info.

RossEvans wrote: (.....................with a lot of turnover and many inactives).

Unless you ward include a military base you don't know what turnover is!!!!!!!!!

Or a ward with a lot of apartments. That one didn't put the ward newsletter in the foyer - it mailed it out quarterly. I always got five to ten of them back with new addresses.

RossEvans wrote:In addition to mass mailings, it is useful to mail something to new move-ins immediately if they have not shown up in church meetings. A significant number of those names and addresses typically turn out to be out of date or undeliverable, and it is better to learn this right away. Since the number of these mystery move-ins will be much smaller, it is more feasible to mail a 1st Class envelope with more welcome-to-the-ward information such as leadership contact info.

Its more feasible to send the Elders Quorum Presidency or High Priest Group Leaders, and the Relief Society, to visit the new move-ins, and get the HT and VT going right away. Personal contact is much more important than a letter and they can bring back the information you need.

jwtaber wrote:Or a ward with a lot of apartments. That one didn't put the ward newsletter in the foyer - it mailed it out quarterly. I always got five to ten of them back with new addresses.

Sounds like they had a HT and VT problem. I rely on the HT's and VT's to provide the information for move outs. They are the first point of contact, if someone says so and so move then they better hand me an address as the HT and VT are the first point in finding the correct address.

Gary_Miller wrote:

RossEvans wrote:In addition to mass mailings, it is useful to mail something to new move-ins immediately if they have not shown up in church meetings. A significant number of those names and addresses typically turn out to be out of date or undeliverable, and it is better to learn this right away. Since the number of these mystery move-ins will be much smaller, it is more feasible to mail a 1st Class envelope with more welcome-to-the-ward information such as leadership contact info.

Its more feasible to send the Elders Quorum Presidency or High Priest Group Leaders, and the Relief Society, to visit the new move-ins, and get the HT and VT going right away. Personal contact is much more important than a letter and they can bring back the information you need.

These activities are not mutually exclusive. Ideally, the ward can do both, and the outcomes can feed back to the clerks. But it is more efficient to screen out bogus "move-in" records before committing leaders' scarce time. If the "move-in" has already moved out elsewhere (a common occurrence, especially with apartment dwellers) or the address is not valid, the letter return should find this out without a wasted trip by leaders. And door-knocking alone may yield zero information if no one answers the door -- an extremely common occurrence -- while a postal return might discover something useful.

I once sent a letter by certified mail and it got kicked back because no one ever answered the door.

The USPS has a web page for additional information on labeling a letter with "RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED".

http://pe.usps.com/businessmail101/addr ... ddress.htm

and

http://pe.usps.com/text/qsg300/Q507.htm

We found this helpful in our stake.

We send letters out all the time marked 'Returned Service Requested'. The visiting teachers often send letters out to their families, and we have requested they put that on the envelope. However, one of the steps required before we can move the record to the address unknown file is contact the occupants at the last known address to see if they know of a forwarding address. So, even if a letter is returned with no forwarding address a visit to the last known address is still going to be required. So, the RS, HP Group, EQ or missionaries will still have to take time out of their busy schedules regardless.

Gary_Miller wrote:Sounds like they had a HT and VT problem. I rely on the HT's and VT's to provide the information for move outs. They are the first point of contact, if someone says so and so move then they better hand me an address as the HT and VT are the first point in finding the correct address.

That, or they had a communication problem. I regularly remind the priesthood and relief society to notify the clerk when they find a member on their route that doesn't live at the address on file. Because what our auxiliary leaderships will do sometimes is just take that member off the HT or VT routes and forget to inform the clerk.

jasonfitt wrote:Because what our auxiliary leaderships will do sometimes is just take that member off the HT or VT routes and forget to inform the clerk.

This may happen but it does not take them out of MLS, and they will show up on the next report of members not assigned HT/VT's sent to the bishop.

The first clerk training after the Brethren introduced the nine steps for finding lost members, I did a presentation on them with a little more detail. One thing I told the clerks is that each one's best friend should be the Relief Society secretary.

Those of you outside Pennsylvania and its coordinating councils might not be aware of this, but there's now an NCOA/address-checking service called Melissa that only costs $50 for a four-year contract. In my stake, we've asked the wards to set that up, and process that once a quarter now that Salt Lake is sending Address Unknown records back quarterly. I don't think any of them have it quite off the ground yet, but it would be much cheaper than all the postage required for mailing out quarterly newsletters like one of my wards did before (see my post #13).

jwtaber wrote: Those of you outside Pennsylvania and its coordinating councils might not be aware of this, but there's now an NCOA/address-checking service called Melissa that only costs $50 for a four-year contract. In my stake, we've asked the wards to set that up, and process that once a quarter now that Salt Lake is sending Address Unknown records back quarterly. I don't think any of them have it quite off the ground yet, but it would be much cheaper than all the postage required for mailing out quarterly newsletters like one of my wards did before (see my post #13).

Without exploring the details, that seems a pretty good price for NCOA processing, expeciallly against the 48-month database. We have been using Anchor Computer's NCOA service annually for that service at a higher cost.

However, I think you need to read the fine print of the agreement you make when you use such processors, whice are licensed to use the USPS National Change of Address database under controlled circumstances. In order to use such a service, I think the user must sign a USPS-required form attesting that he is running this batch of addresses in order to preprocess a list for an actual mailing. So the NCOA service supplements the mailing and makes it more efficient, but I believe the end user cannot use it as a substitute for mailing to the scrubbed list.

Even at $75 minimum per batch, which is what our unit has paid for our annual year-end mailing, the NCOA processing is well worth the cost because of the efficient output. But we still have to do the mailing and pay for the postage.

Edit: The USPS-required form at Melissa is substantially identical to the form we sign for Anchor. (Complete with USPS logo. Only the licensed vendor name is different.) The form says in relevant part:

I also understand that the sole purpose of the NCOALink service is to provide a mailing list correction service for lists that will be used for preparation of mailings.

FYI, here is a link to the USPS list of all vendors licensed to provide the 48-month "full service" NCOALink processing. There are other vendors, typically cheaper, that only use an 18-month database.

I will keep that last part in mind. But it's not like there aren't still going to be some things mailed out based on membership record addresses in any event. And Melissa plus an annual mailing with a refined address list would still be much cheaper than quarterly mailings.

jwtaber wrote:I will keep that last part in mind. But it's not like there aren't still going to be some things mailed out based on membership record addresses in any event. And Melissa plus an annual mailing with a refined address list would still be much cheaper than quarterly mailings.

Agreed. We have never done quarterly mailings. We have routinely done a comprehensive annual mailing. Some ad hoc mailings to subsets also occur, of course.

I'm a big proponent of using one of the NCOALink services. Just reminding all that using such a service does oblige the local unit to do some mailing to the full scrubbed list.

Doing so is in everyone's interest anyway. The belt-and-suspenders approach of the NCOA preprocessing followed by the mailing captures information that the NCOA search alone cannot. For example, the NCOA search will return forwarding addresses, if any, along with address validation, etc. But only a physical mailing will usually return the fact that a particular name is not at the address with no forwarding available.

BTW, I am interested in the attractively priced subscription service by this vendor that you mentioned, but I couldn't find it described on their website. Could you post details, or PM them to me? Is there no additional cost -- per batch, per address, etc. -- beyond the $50 for four years?

The short answer is no, there is no additional cost, and the only limit is 33,000 members per batch. In the instructions, it is recommended to set up every member in the unit in the file - easily done with a Custom Report. (That might make it easier for it to catch individual forwarding orders among other things.)

I'd attach the instructions PDF if I could. I'm still waiting for this clerk's permission to post his name and contact information here. In the meantime, anyone can email me directly at jtaberlds@gmail.com and I'll pass along what he's sent me. (One of the folks I've sent it to is the bishop who did the quarterly newsletters by mail - he's now a stake membership clerk himself.)

jwtaber wrote:The short answer is no, there is no additional cost, and the only limit is 33,000 members per batch. In the instructions, it is recommended to set up every member in the unit in the file - easily done with a Custom Report. (That might make it easier for it to catch individual forwarding orders among other things.)

If we can run batches as often as we like for that fixed subcription fee, that sounds like a good deal.

I concur that it is wise to process the list on the basis of individuals rather than households. I prepare our NCOALink input batch files that way (formatted as "John Jones" instead of "Jones, John," since that is the common postal addressing style the NCOA parser is probably designed to read) for each head of household and spouse in MLS.

It also would be possible to mail to non-member spouses -- not in MLS -- gleaned from the lds.org directory. In my ward that would yield about 75 additional names added to the list. The content of that physical mailing might be different from what is mailed to members, but that is a judgment call. So far we have not done such a non-member spouse mailing.

In any case, units should be mindful of appropriate content in any physical mailings because someone might actually read it.

The additional twist is that when I do the followup physical mailing for our ward households, to save postage and perhaps get extra USPS database hits on a per-couple basis, I repackage the scrubbed list into households (formatted as "John & Mary Jones").

jwtaber wrote:Those of you outside Pennsylvania and its coordinating councils might not be aware of this, but there's now an NCOA/address-checking service called Melissa that only costs $50 for a four-year contract. In my stake, we've asked the wards to set that up, and process that once a quarter now that Salt Lake is sending Address Unknown records back quarterly. I don't think any of them have it quite off the ground yet, but it would be much cheaper than all the postage required for mailing out quarterly newsletters like one of my wards did before (see my post #13).

I don't see the benefit in wasting budget money for this type of service.

After exploring the website of the vendor (Melissa) that jwtaber recommends, it seems that the deal offered may be even more attractive.

According to the site, if the customer uses the vendor's free downloadable software to preprocess a list, there is no $50 minimum charge per batch file. The advertised fees for the actual processing of small batches (under 50,000) would only be $2.95 per thousand or fraction thereof. I have found no reference to any subscription fee for this service. (The lack of a minimum, or a low minimum, is important to small customers like us, because NCOALink services are mostly used by mailers with lists of thousands or millions of names.)

Haven't verified all this in practice, but I plan to try this vendor for our next mailing. I emphasize that doing the physical mailing to the scrubbed list is still necessary, and the postage for that is still the most significant cost.

After I brought up Melissa here and we started discussing it, I went back to the clerk in western PA who'd first used it. In response, he said a couple of things:

1. He's working on better instructions than what he gave me before. I will send what you just posted to him and see if that fits in with what he's doing now.

2. While my stake president and I thought doing this at the ward level would give the ward clerks something to do, stake level makes much more sense. (The wards are balking about each setting this up themselves anyway.)

I’m the clerk in Western PA that jwtaber has mentioned regarding the address search. I have used the Melissa Data (MD) service to first process my ward membership file, and then again to process the stake file. First to clarify some things, 1) There are many vendors offering this type of service. I selected MD because of their reputation and prompt response to my inquiry, 2) It is not a 4 year contract or agreement, but it is a 4 year history search of the NCOALink database for change of addresses, 3) It is necessary to sign to sign a PAF, as alerted by Ross Evans, with the USPS. The form is supplied by MD and contains the following language:

do hereby acknowledge that I have received and reviewed the NCOALink Information Package supplied to me by Melissa Data, an NCOALink
Service Provider. I also understand that the sole purpose of the NCOALink service is to provide a mailing list correction service for lists that
will be used for preparation of mailings. Furthermore, I understand that NCOALink may not be used to create or maintain new movers’ lists.

As stated, you will be provided with a mailing list correction that will be used for the preparation of mailings. That is the purpose of the search, however, in doing so we are also providing our area missionaries and HT/VT with accurate information saving time and money, 4) Pricing; the cost of the service is $50.00 each time you submit your file. The file can include up to 33,000 names, so it is better to do this at the stake level rather than each individual ward, 5) the “free downloadable software” is called List Ware. It is not a service, but rather a tool that can be used to assist in preparing your file for submission. There is a charge per each 1,000 names prepared. It is in excess of the $50.00 search fee. I suppose it could be helpful for those not familiar with Excel, but not needed.

We have found the address search to be an excellent tool for our mailings and missionary efforts. We intend to submit our stake list at minimum semi-annually. I've attached my notes that I followed to perform the search.

johnbowenm wrote:5) the “free downloadable software” is called List Ware. It is not a service, but rather a tool that can be used to assist in preparing your file for submission. There is a charge per each 1,000 names prepared. It is in excess of the $50.00 search fee. I suppose it could be helpful for those not familiar with Excel, but not needed.

Thanks for the additional information. What I still don't understand is that the Melissa website states that if the ListWare software is used for preprocessing, the $50 fee per batch is eliminated, which obviously is a more attractive deal. From the website:

• Eliminates service fee
Save $50 every time you use ListWare to submit a file for processing

Have you investigated this with your sales contact there?

I finally heard back from my own inquiry to Melissa sales, which I initiated last week via their website.

It turns out that there is no cost advantage at all for small customers like us to use the ListWare product because it is targeted at large customers willing to pay a $499 annual fee not advertised on the website. So the most cost-effective option they offer us is the batch processing method described above by johnbowenm, which does carry the $50-per-file base minimum.

As a footnote, Melissa replied again and said the customer could use the ListWare preprocessing applicaton without the big annual subscription fee, but then the $50-per-file minimum would apply. As johnbowenm said, there really is no technical advantage in using this application when a spreadsheet works just as well.

Where do you find a USPS-licensed commercial database? Is this like a website? do you pay for it? how much? How do you use it?

RossEvans wrote:I have found it useful to use a USPS-licensed commercial database service before we do our year-end mailing to the full ward roster to preprocess the list against the National Change of Address database.

You get back a file with more information that you get just with the physical mailing -- which you are obliged to execute anyway when you agree to the Postal Service's terms and conditions of using the NCOALink service. The physical mailing with the Return Service Requested -- of the remaining addresses not culled out for forwarding or non-deliverability in the database preprocessing -- typically yields a few additional returns.

The input file can be a CSV exported from MLS. The service's output file also yields a list of your input addresses standardized. And if your input address is undeliverable, you find out why in more detail. There is a bit of a learning curve to analyze the output, for which you need some basic skills with a spreadsheet or database program. And, of course, you still have to key the moves and changes back into MLS.

I submit a file of adult members to be processed by the service, crunch their output file and do the physical mailing by recombining the names into households in the form, "John & Jane Doe." This step is not required, but it helps maximize the forwarding hit rate and minimize postage.

There are several such licensed service providers that handle the NCOALIink database services, which you can easily find by Googling that term. I have used Anchor Computer for the past several years. Some of the extra cost of the $75-80 service is recouped in postage by not mailing to old or invalid addresses. From a clerical point of view, I think it is the most productive expenditure we make all year.

Element78 wrote:Where do you find a USPS-licensed commercial database? Is this like a website? do you pay for it? how much? How do you use it?

You have responded to a topic that is four years old, and some things have changed since then. But you can Google to find companies that will correct your address file. All that I have found charge for this service.

If you read back through this topic, you will find answers to some of your questions. The most common method is to send your existing addresses to the provider using a spreadsheet or other file. You will receive in return a list of USPS-standard addresses, and then you will need to update them in LCR one at a time.

For that reason, I usually check them at the USPS site individually, since I will have to fix them individually anyway.

lajackson wrote:For that reason, I usually check them at the USPS site individually, since I will have to fix them individually anyway.

That's easy enough to get USPS standardized addresses, but can you do that to get a forwarding address?

russellhltn wrote:That's easy enough to get USPS standardized addresses, but can you do that to get a forwarding address?

Oops. I don't think so. I also think I forgot to read the subject correctly. [smile]

For the forwarding address, we mail a first class letter with Return Service Requested endorsement.