In addition to The Long Island Catholic Sunday, the annual Sunday, usually in February, during which parishioners are urged to contribute to their parishes the price of TLIC, The Long Island Catholic continues to offer to help parishes with a follow up program.  Results vary, but many parishes have found such follow up helpful.

In St. Bernard’s, Levittown, for example, nearly a quarter of the parish’s TLIC returns one year came from a follow up mailing, according to pastor emeritus Msgr. George Graham.  “It helps, too, to educate people about the need to support the paper,” Msgr. Graham said.

The program involves a mailing to parishioners who haven’t returned their TLIC Sunday envelopes asking them to support their parishes by contributing for The Long Island Catholic.  TLIC pays the cost of printing the materials to be mailed; the parish pays the cost of the mailing.  Mailings can be scheduled nearly anytime during the first part of the year.

Other parishes find it helpful simply to include TLIC envelopes in two or more envelope packets spread through the year in addition to the one on TLIC Sunday.

For details about the follow up program, contact Mary Salegna, Operations Manager, at 516-594-1000, ext. 32.

More than 75 percent of our parishes save money every month by paying their TLIC bills on time.  This “prompt payment” discount is scaled according to the percentage of parish households which are receiving the newspaper.  If 49% or fewer households receive TLIC, the discount is 5 percent.  If 50 to 74 percent of the total receive TLIC, the discount doubles to 10 percent.  And if more than 75 percent of parish households receive the newspaper, the on-time discount goes to 15 percent.  “On time” means that payment is received by TLIC by the 20^th of the month.

More for less

Because of the way the discount system works, it’s possible that a parish’s total bill can actually be lowered by the addition of parish households which for some reason are not getting TLIC.  An additional 5 percent discount in a parish where 1,200 families receive TLIC, for example, could pay for about 60 additional households, which could be enough to move the parish from the 5 percent to the 10 percent bracket and result in a net savings each year.  The closer a parish is to the threshold of a bracket, the greater the possible savings.