Distributing the Parenting Newslettters
Distributing the Parenting
Newsletters
A. ESSENTIALS FOR DISTRIBUTION
1. How will parents receive the newsletter?
2. How do we get parents' addresses?
3. How do we create the mailing?
4. How much will postage cost?
5. Who will pay for printing (and postage) costs?
6. How do I create a local partnership for
distribution?
7. Why do so many Extension offices partner with
Kiwanis Clubs?
8. How do we purchase or print the newsletters?
9. Using the Preparing to Parent Newsletters
B. COMMON DISTRIBUTION
PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS
1. Address
label problem: “The hospital (or health department)
won't give us the address list because of HIPAA issues.”
2. Difficult Partners
3. Partners want to give
all 12 newsletters at once?
4. How can we reach families
who speak Spanish?
5. How do you keep track
of parents who change addresses?
6. How do you keep track
of parents who give birth in neighboring counties or states?
7. How can we identify
new parents who move into our county or adopt?
8. Can we distribute
the newsletters electronically?
A. ESSENTIALS FOR DISTRIBUTION
1. How will parents
receive the newsletter?
UW-Extension's parenting newsletters may be delivered by hand as an
adjunct to existing programs. For instance, Parenting the First Year
and Parenting the Second and Third Years may be handed out at pediatric
visits, or through home visitation or childcare programs, at parent
resource libraries, or by high school teachers (working with teen parents)
and other parent educators. In other words, the newsletters fit flexibly
into many types of programs. Another common method of delivery is sending
newsletters through the mail. Using mail delivery is especially useful
in reaching parents who avoid or may not have the time for face-to-face
parenting programs. The majority of Extension offices in Wisconsin,
in collaboration with their community partners, mail the newsletter
series to parents. The rest of this memo describes how to distribute
the newsletters by mail.
2.
How do we get parents' addresses?
Mailing lists may be obtained from the local maternity hospitals, county/state
birth records, health departments, or newspaper birth announcements
(see note on HIPAA problems under "Common Distribution Problems
and Solutions"). The most commonly used source is maternity hospitals
3.
How do we create the mailing?
Hospitals often have a technology department that will print
a mail label for each birth in the prior month; ask them for 12 copies
and label them 1-12 so you will know which issue to mail each month. If
that isn’t possible, hospitals or health departments will often
provide the address data in an electronic file that can be imported into
an Access database for management and label printing (Clark and Oconto
Counties do this).
Volunteers from Kiwanis (or other service clubs or partners) often coordinate
the preparation of the mailing, so every family receives the correct issue
of the newsletter each month. In Oconto County where they use Access database
the issue number is actually printed right on the mailing label. Preparation
for mailing requires approximately 15 person-hours per hundred newsletters.
This means that 7 volunteers, working together, can prepare a mailing
of one hundred newsletters in about 2 hours. The newsletters are folded
in half, with the back page out (that includes local partner information),
and stapled or taped before affixing the mailing labels. If you are including
one of the new literacy or temperament insert pages (Parenting Future
Readers or Parenting Your Unique Child) with the mailing, the insert can
be placed on top of the newsletter before folding and stapling.
4.
How much will postage cost?
a. Bulk rate:
There is an annual fee of $150 for bulk rate. To use bulk rate you
need to mail a minimum of 200 pieces of presorted mail per mailing
(each month). Local postmasters may interpret this rule differently,
with some allowing that Parenting the First Year (PFY) and Parenting
the Second and Third Years (PSTY) are really part of the same mailing.
Others go to the opposite extreme, contending that issue 1 and issue
2 of PFY should be treated as different mailings. With bulk rate,
if you have non-profit status, the cost is 16.5 cents per piece. (If
you are a business, the cost is 26.8 cents per piece). If you are
using bulk rate, adding one of the inserts in with the newsletters
won't increase the postage costs (although the weight for each bulk
mailing must be the same, so every newsletter must receive a 1-sheet
insert). Bulk rate allows each mailed piece to go up to 3.3 ounces
without being pushed into the next price category. Hospitals usually
have a bulk rate permit, so if you are mailing through the hospital
your group of partners may only need to pay for the cost of postage.
The bulk permit address must, however, match the return address.
b. First class postage:
First class postage: Each newsletter weighs .9 ounces, so it will go for the current first class postage cost for 1.0 ounce items. Adding one of the inserts adds an additional .2 ounces for a total of 1.1 ounces. This will increase the cost to the next category for first class postage. To keep postage costs from going up, you might consider having the newsletters printed locally on lighter weight paper. If the newsletters are printed on 24 lb. weight paper and the insert on regular 20 lb. paper the total weight stays at 1.0 ounce, or the least expensive category for first class postage.
5.
Who will pay for printing (and postage) costs?
In some counties (for example Vilas), the county Extension budget covers
the cost. But this is unusual. Most commonly, the costs are borne by
local partnerships, especially with Kiwanis Clubs (and other service
clubs), county and city health departments, and hospitals. In some counties,
funding is supplemented by including a "fundraising card"
in issue 12 of Parenting the First Year, so that parents may donate
to offset the costs of printing and postage. One family who received
Parenting the First Year donated $10,000 to help us produce a new series
for the prenatal months. Other families have contributed money to help
us expand distribution to more families.
6. How do I create a local partnership for distribution?
The most common strategy for distributing the newsletters has been
a 3-way partnership between a UW-Extension county office, a local maternity
hospital, and local Kiwanis Clubs. Other local partnerships have included
city or county health departments, hospital auxiliaries, Home; Community
Education Clubs, Lioness Clubs, Optimist International Clubs and private
businesses. Deciding who you want to recruit as partners is up to you.
You can use this marketing brochure to help recruit organizational partners for the Parenting the First Year newsletter project. You may also want to share this summary of key evaluation findings for the newsletters when discussing the project with potential partners.
In some counties, an initial partnership with a Kiwanis Club has led
to additional partners, because the Kiwanis members were connected to
so many other organizations in the community. If you have one partner,
like Kiwanis, ask their help in recruiting additional needed partners.
Extension offices throughout Wisconsin have accomplished distribution
in many different ways, creatively responding to local opportunities.
Here are examples of how partnerships have worked in two Wisconsin counties
a. Door County
i. Two Kiwanis clubs in Sturgeon Bay and one in Northern Door County
provide the funds to purchase (print) the newsletters, and volunteers
to coordinate monthly mailings.
ii. The Door County Memorial Hospital funds the postage cost,
and provides staff to print and attach mailing labels. Both the
hospital and Kiwanis clubs (along with the Extension office) are
featured on the back page of each issue of the newsletter.
b. Wood County
i. The Extension Agent chairs a collaboration of 9 organizations,
including two hospitals, two Kiwanis Clubs, the Family Health Center
of Marshfield, the Wood County Partnership Co., the Children's Miracle
Network, and the Wood County Health Department.
ii. Each of these organizations contributes to either the funding
or distribution of the newsletters.
iii.The Extension Agent chairs a twice-yearly meeting of all the
collaborators to coordinate their efforts and plan for the future.
After you approach potential partners you can meet with them to discuss
your common goals of serving the needs of new parents. Offer to print
their name/logo/referral number on the back page of the newsletters
(other local resource information can also be included, such as phone
numbers of the local Family Resource Center or the Birth to Three program).
You and your partners will come to feel a sense of ownership of the
program. Periodic evaluations of the newsletter that demonstrate its
effectiveness at promoting competent parenting will encourage continuing
support from your community collaborators. See our evaluation website
at http://www.uwex.edu/ces/flp/parentingeval_1
After an evaluation of the newsletters is completed you will have
a written report with figures and graphics, a series of press releases
(you can send to local papers), a sample handout for use at presentations
you may give, and a power point presentation of your local evaluation
to show to your partners! When your collaborators see your presentations
this will keep the partnership energized.
a. Emphasize these points when you first approach potential
organizational partners:
i. The goal of the project (helping parents raise their children
better) is shared by all the partner organizations.
ii. Research verifies that this project really works, and not many
parenting education programs can say that (we are an “evidence
based” program).
iii. On a per-family basis, this project is really inexpensive,
only about $6 to $10 per family per year.
iv. All the partners can have their organization’s name
and logo printed on the back page of the newsletters (which is the
first page seen when mailed), so the project will be identified
as belonging to them as much as to Extension.
7.
Why do so many Extension offices partner with Kiwanis Clubs?
The Kiwanis international focus is “Young Children:
Priority One,” which fits this project perfectly. They are looking
for projects like ours, in which they can have faith that their hours
of work and financial contributions will really do some good for young
children. We began coordinating and then collaborating with the Wisconsin-Upper
Peninsula District of Kiwanis over a decade ago, when their District
Governor was Norm Everson, a retired 4-H Specialist. Since then, 165
Kiwanis Clubs in this District (and many others across the country)
have partnered with county Extension offices on this project. If you
approach a local Kiwanis Club, remind them that this is a District-wide
project for Kiwanis.
8. How do we purchase or print the newsletters?
There are two types of costs associated with printing. First, the newsletters
are copyrighted by the University of Wisconsin, and most groups need to
purchase a license to print them. Since you are part of the university,
you and your collaborators do not have to pay this fee. Second, there
is the cost of the actual printing.
a. There are several options for printing:
Option 1: As a county Extension office, you can purchase from UW-Extension
Publications a CD containing the newsletters, and may print them locally.
This is especially useful if you have a project partner who has a
print shop (like a hospital), or a print shop that will donate their
work. Using this option you can customize the back page of each newsletter
with local content (names and logos of your partners, local telephone
referral numbers, etc.). There is a $50 fee for the CD. Talk to Jim
Smith at Extension Publications if you want to learn more about
this option (608-262-2655 or jim.Smith@uwex.edu).
Option 2: We have an agreement with Badger State Industries to print copies of the parenting newsletters at a special rate, and customized with your own localized back page. For orders of 50 or more sets, the cost is $3.50 per set, which includes shipping and handling. Please review these instructions to purchase newsletters from the BSI website. Although each county Extension offices have been authorized to make purchases from this vendor, you need to register for an individual buyer ID to submit your first order.
Option 3: From the Parenting
Newsletter website, you can purchase single sets or small numbers
of the newsletters, the same way as any other Extension Bulletin.
As part of Extension you get a 40% discount over the listed prices.
The listed price for each of our parenting newsletter series is
currently $7.50.
9. Using the "Preparing to Parent" Newsletters
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