A proposed postal rate raise has nonprofit fundraising departments worried that donations will be going towards stamps rather than causes.

The Postal Service has announced a plan to increase the cost of a first-class postage stamp to 46 cents by the beginning of next year, the Washington Post reports. Additionally, the price of mailing a postcard would increase by 30 cents, and magazine publishers would be subject to an 8 percent rate hike in an effort to narrow USPS' $7 billion budget gap.

However, hundreds of nonprofits and other corporations have formed the Affordable Mail Alliance to call on the agency to trim labor and operating costs before increasing postage rates.

Tony Conway, spokesman for the Alliance, called the agency oversized. He told the Post that the Postal Service "is a system that's built to handle about 300 billion pieces of mail, and they've got 170 billion, and it's set to decrease."

The Postal Service is hoping to avoid a confrontation by asking Congress to waive a health benefit liability payment of $5.5 billion that could shrink the agency's budget deficit more than a rate increase, the Nonprofit Times writes.