What You Need to Know About Marketing Laws Before Contacting Donors

You’ve put so much work into your next marketing campaign — getting budget approval, brainstorming creative ideas, testing messages on different audiences. But before you hit “send,” drop a flyer in the mail, or pick up the phone, don’t forget to check the laws.

Senny Boone, general counsel at the Direct Marketing Association, and Robert S. Tigner, regulatory counsel at the Direct Marketing Association Nonprofit Federation, highlighted the following regulations as some that can catch nonprofits off guard. While it’s always wise to consult your organization’s lawyer on these issues, here’s what these legal experts advised.

Updates to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act

In July 2015, the Federal Communications Commission issued a ruling to clarify certain clauses of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). Here are some of the key points:

• Text messages and Internet-to-phone text messages are subject to the same rules as phone calls.

• The definition of what counts as an autodialer has expanded, which means that more categories of text messages and phone calls must comply with the TCPA.

• By early October 2015, for certain calls or text messages subject to the “prior express written consent” rule, organizations must stop relying on consent given before October 2013, which doesn’t meet the new standard.

• At any time, recipients may revoke consent to receive autodialed/prerecorded calls or text messages, and organizations cannot limit how.

• Having someone’s phone number is not proof of consent.

• Consent is associated with an individual, not a phone number, so calling or texting a phone number that has been reassigned may get an organization in trouble.

Organizations can be fined up to $1,500 per violation.

For more detailed information, check out the Direct Marketing Association’s guidelines.

Postal Service Rules About Personal Information

Nonprofits are eligible to send mail using nonprofit postage rates, but certain personal information is restricted.

• To qualify for lower rates, the mailing must have explicit advertising asking for a donation or selling a product or service.

• Personal information, defined as anything other than names, mailing addresses, and dates, must be related to the donation solicitation or advertisement. Personal information such as the expiration date of a donor’s membership or figures from a donor’s previous contributions is permitted because it relates directly to the solicitation.

• If charities use the phrase “tax receipt” in letters acknowledging donations, those letters cannot be mailed using nonprofit postage rates.

For more information, see the USPS rules.

Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation

Whereas the U.S. spam law hasn’t changed in more than a decade, U.S. nonprofits that send emails to Canadian subscribers should brush up on the 2014 Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), which requires organizations to obtain either express or implied consent from an individual before sending him or her commercial email messages. In some cases, commercial email messages sent by a charity where the primary purpose of the message is to raise funds for the organization are exempt.

Express consent means an individual has signed up or agreed verbally to receive messages. It lasts until an individual withdraws it.

Implied consent stems from a nonprofit’s relationship with an individual. If someone has donated to, or volunteered with, a nonprofit in the previous two years, that counts as giving implied consent to receive messages. Implied consent must be renewed.

A pre-checked box that an individual has to uncheck does not count as express consent, according to the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, which enforces the law.

Companies that violate CASL can be fined up to $10 million.

For more detailed information, check out the Direct Marketing Association’s guidelines.