Postal Rate Reform Member Briefing

Director of Public Policy Simone Radcliffe hosted this briefing on August 13, 2026, two weeks ahead of NANA's testimony before the Postal Regulatory Commission on the Nonprofit Postal Rate Reform file. Lucinda Farrow-Mbatha, executive director of the Federation of Community Libraries, joined as a guest.

Radcliffe walked members through the Nonprofit Mail Stability Act, introduced in April 2025, and what NANA would ask the Commission for in its testimony later that month. Farrow-Mbatha, whose federation mails 1.1 million pieces a year across 1,900 small and rural libraries, gave attendees a concrete look at what a rate increase does to a mailing program that size — the kind of specific figure Radcliffe said staffers remember longer than a general policy position.

Members with their own postal-dependent programs were invited to send figures to the policy team ahead of the testimony, to strengthen the record with specifics from associations of different sizes. Radcliffe also previewed the shape of NANA's written testimony, which would draw on the three-year phase-in language already proposed in the Nonprofit Mail Stability Act rather than argue for a faster timeline, on the view that a workable phase-in was more likely to hold up than an aggressive one.

The briefing is aimed at members whose associations depend on print and mail for renewal notices, member communications, or fundraising appeals, particularly libraries, food banks, and other membership organizations that mail at volume on tight budgets. Members who couldn't attend live were still encouraged to send their own mailing figures ahead of the testimony deadline.

The webinar was free, recorded, and open to all members, with the recording distributed the same afternoon.