NMLP Transparency Report 2026

Operational scale

All figures below are operational measurements from the New Mexico Literacy Project warehouse intake records. Figures are approximate and reflect partial-year operations through the publication date. Methodology: pickup weights recorded at intake; routing percentages from the post-sort destination log; all figures rounded to two significant digits.

Routing breakdown

After hand-sorting at the NMLP warehouse, every book is assigned to one of the following destinations. Percentages are approximate intake-weighted shares from the post-sort destination log.

Note: The routing percentages above sum to 100%. Resale is the operational engine — revenue from resale funds the free pickup operation, the warehouse rent, the sort labor, and the free routing of children's, bilingual, and ESL books to local literacy destinations. Without resale revenue, the rest of the routing tracks would not be financially possible. This is the structural reason NMLP operates as a for-profit rather than a 501(c)(3) — the operation is self-sustaining without grants, donations, or volunteer labor.

Financial framing

NMLP is a single-owner-operator for-profit business. The operating model in summary:

• Revenue: Online resale (Amazon and eBay primarily; specialist channels for rare and signed copies). Donor pickups generate no revenue; the donation is free both directions.
• Direct costs: Warehouse rent at 5445 Edith Blvd NE; vehicle and fuel for statewide free pickup; resale platform fees (Amazon FBM ~15%, eBay ~13.25%); shipping supplies; book repair and cleaning; insurance.
• Indirect costs: Operator time (Josh Eldred, single human; no employees, no volunteers, no contractors). Most operational hours go to pickups and sort.
• Subsidies received: None. NMLP receives zero grants, zero foundation funding, zero government contracts, and zero subsidies of any kind. The operation is entirely self-funded from resale revenue.
• Tax status: For-profit single-member LLC operating in New Mexico. Files Schedule C federally. Pays New Mexico Gross Receipts Tax (GRT) on applicable revenue. Not a 501(c)(3); donations are not tax-deductible.

This structure is the structural reason NMLP can accept books that 501(c)(3) operators routinely refuse: textbooks older than five years, encyclopedias, magazines, water-damaged copies, mold-spotted copies, broken-spine copies, and bulk genres like hymnals or choral music. A nonprofit accepting that intake would burn its small-staff capacity sorting unrecoverable material. NMLP's for-profit structure means resale revenue funds the labor cost of sorting through everything, recovering whatever can be rehomed, and routing the rest to paper recycling. The cost of "doing it for the books that don't sell" is carried by the books that do.

Operating commitments

NMLP holds itself to the standards published in A Donor's Bill of Rights:

• Free at-the-door pickup, any quantity, any condition, no minimum
• Hand-sorted at the warehouse — no books pass through to per-pound salvage without human review
• Published refusal categories upfront (see YES Guide)
• No data resale; donor contact info used only for scheduling confirmation
• Public open-data infrastructure: /data — 16 published datasets, all CC-BY-4.0
• Honest framing in every comparison page; competitor strengths acknowledged where they exist
• Open invitation for journalists, researchers, and civic organizations to audit any operational claim

2027 outlook

Planned operational expansion in calendar year 2027:

• Continued statewide pickup coverage with expanded volume-justified rural routes
• Archive growth to 60+ documented entries; submit MARC records to OCLC WorldCat via sponsoring library partner
• Pursue DataCite DOI for the ecosystem dataset via institutional sponsor
• Expand Spanish-language content surface; explore Diné Bizaad and Vietnamese refugee-resettlement audience pages with native-speaker review
• Continued partnership with Assistance League ABQ for thrift overflow, Friends of the Albuquerque Public Library for surplus, Savers ABQ for unsold book recovery
• Apply for ISSN to make this annual report a citable serial publication