A Million Pieces of Mail

Lucinda Farrow-Mbatha, executive director of the Federation of Community Libraries, explains why her federation of 1,900 small and rural public libraries mails 1.1 million pieces of member communication a year, why nonprofit postal rates matter more to a library federation than most people would guess, and where the Nonprofit Mail Stability Act stands in Congress.

• Lucinda Farrow-Mbatha — Executive Director, Federation of Community Libraries. Advocacy voice on nonprofit postal rates.

• 00:00 Intro

• 01:30 1,900 libraries, 16 staff

• 06:20 Why 1.1 million pieces of mail a year

• 11:40 Rural libraries and the digital-divide argument

• 15:30 Why a hybrid digital approach hasn't cut volume much

• 19:00 What a postal rate increase actually costs the federation

• 23:00 The Nonprofit Mail Stability Act, introduced last spring

• 27:00 Possible testimony ahead

• 30:15 Working alongside NANA's policy team

• 33:00 Where the bill stands now

• 35:30 The public-funding angle

• 38:00 Avoiding the "just complaining" trap

• 39:30 Outro

Host: Lucinda, most people picture a library federation communicating almost entirely by email by 2026. Why is your federation still mailing over a million pieces a year to reach 1,900 member libraries?

Lucinda Farrow-Mbatha: Because a meaningful share of our 1,900 member libraries serve communities where reliable broadband and consistent email engagement can't be assumed the way they can in a major city. Small and rural libraries are often the actual internet access point for their town, which is exactly why we can't assume email reaches their director reliably — sometimes the library's own connection is the least reliable part of their operation, and staff time to check email consistently is thin at a one- or two-person library.

Host: Sixteen staff serving 1,900 libraries is a lean ratio. What's actually in that mail volume?

Lucinda Farrow-Mbatha: Membership renewal notices, our quarterly bulletin, grant and funding-opportunity alerts, and program materials for our summer reading and continuing-education offerings. It adds up fast at 1,900 recipients times multiple mailings a year, and unlike a lot of associations, we can't simply declare digital-only and call the coverage gap someone else's problem — a library that can't reliably get our communication is a library that can't pass along what we're offering to its own patrons either.

Host: Have you looked seriously at digital-only alternatives despite the access gap, even as a partial shift?

Lucinda Farrow-Mbatha: We've piloted a hybrid approach with a subset of member libraries that confirmed reliable connectivity — email for lower-stakes updates, mail reserved for renewal notices and anything time- sensitive. It's helped at the margins, but it hasn't meaningfully reduced the core mail volume, because the libraries where we'd most want to shift to digital-only are frequently the same ones where we can't be confident the shift would actually reach them. I'd rather over-mail than have a rural library federation member miss a renewal notice because we assumed connectivity that wasn't there.

Host: How does postal rate policy actually affect your operating budget?

Lucinda Farrow-Mbatha: Directly and substantially, since mail is a recurring, volume-driven cost for us in a way it isn't for most trade associations. A rate increase that another association might absorb as a rounding error is a real budget-line problem for us, at our volume, especially since we're not positioned to raise dues on 1,900 small, often public-funded libraries to cover it — many of them are working from municipal budgets that don't flex.

Host: That's the case NANA has been making to the Postal Regulatory Commission. How did the federation get involved in that advocacy?

Lucinda Farrow-Mbatha: NANA reached out because our situation was a concrete, specific example of the broader nonprofit mail cost problem the Nonprofit Mail Stability Act is meant to address — the bill was introduced in Congress last spring, and a bill benefits from specific numbers attached to it rather than an abstract argument about nonprofits in general. A million-plus pieces a year to a federation of libraries that includes some of the most under-resourced public institutions in the country is a fairly vivid data point for a member of Congress or a commissioner to hear.

Host: Where does the bill actually stand right now?

Lucinda Farrow-Mbatha: It's still active, moving through the normal slow process a bill like this goes through — hearings, coalition letters, building support before it comes anywhere near a vote. NANA has been building the broader advocacy case, including gathering member experiences like ours, and there's been discussion of members like us being called to testify at some point, though nothing's been scheduled as of when we're recording this. I don't want to overstate where things stand — this is patient, incremental work, not a fast process.

Host: You said members may be called to testify at some point. What would that actually involve, if it happens?

Lucinda Farrow-Mbatha: Written testimony first, most likely, submitted for the record with our specific figures — the 1.1 million pieces, the share of our budget that mail represents, examples of the smallest, most rural libraries in our federation who'd be hit hardest by a rate increase. If it goes further, live testimony before the Postal Regulatory Commission, similar to what NANA's own policy team has done on this file already. Nothing is scheduled as of this recording, and I don't want to suggest it is.

Host: How does the federation coordinate with NANA on something like this, practically? Do you write your own materials, or does NANA's policy team draft them for you?

Lucinda Farrow-Mbatha: It's collaborative rather than one side handing the other a finished product. NANA's policy team understands the broader legislative landscape and how to frame an ask that lands with a congressional office or a commissioner. We bring the specifics only a federation actually running the mail operation can provide — real volume numbers, real cost data, real examples from our smallest member libraries. Neither side could make as strong a case alone as the two of us make together.

Host: Is there a fallback if the bill doesn't move this Congress?

Lucinda Farrow-Mbatha: We keep making the case, and in the meantime we look hard at our own mail efficiency — presorting, better address hygiene, consolidating mailings where we can without losing the libraries that genuinely depend on paper. None of that solves the underlying rate problem, but it's within our control while the bill is not.

Host: You mentioned public funding earlier — many of your member libraries are municipally funded. Does that change the advocacy argument at all compared to, say, a trade association making the same postal-rate case?

Lucinda Farrow-Mbatha: It sharpens it, honestly. A postal rate increase that hits a public library isn't just a cost to our federation, it's ultimately a cost that flows back to a municipal budget, and in some cases that means a town has to choose between absorbing the increase and cutting something else the library offers directly to residents. That's a different kind of argument than a private trade association can usually make, and it's one members of Congress tend to respond to, because it has a constituent-facing consequence they can picture concretely.

Host: What would you tell another association's executive director who thinks postal policy doesn't touch their organization?

Lucinda Farrow-Mbatha: Check your actual mail volume before you assume that. We assumed for years that postal costs were a minor operating line, right up until a rate increase landed and we did the math on 1.1 million pieces. If any meaningful share of your membership depends on physical mail for any reason — rural access, an older membership, a regulatory-notice requirement — this is worth watching, not dismissing as someone else's issue.

Host: Last one before we close. Do you worry about coming across as just another association complaining about costs, versus making a case people take seriously?

Lucinda Farrow-Mbatha: Constantly, which is exactly why we lead with specific numbers rather than a general complaint. "Postal rates are a burden on nonprofits" is easy to tune out. "This specific federation of 1,900 public libraries mails 1.1 million pieces a year and a rate increase translates directly into a cut somewhere in a small-town library budget" is much harder to dismiss, because it's concrete and it's ours.

Host: Lucinda, thanks for making the case as specific as it actually is.

Lucinda Farrow-Mbatha: Thank you for having me. A million pieces of mail is a number that's easy to say and much harder to actually manage — I hope it lands with someone listening who's in a similar spot, and I hope the next time we talk about this, it's because the bill actually moved.