How Forward Movement trusts ePost Global to deliver devotionals to readers around the world

Forward Movement is a ministry of the Episcopal Church that has published devotionals, prayer guides, and spiritual resources for more than 90 years. Their flagship publication, Forward Day by Day, reaches individual readers and faith communities across the United States and internationally, connecting people to daily reflection and prayer regardless of where they live.

A partnership built on trust

Some vendor relationships are transactional. This one is not.

Forward Movement has worked with ePost Global and its predecessor carriers for more than two decades. Through the transitions, one thing has remained constant: Doug Smith has been there. For Vicki Everett, who manages the international mail files and printer coordination, and for Kathy Jose, who has handled fulfillment operations for the past six years, that continuity matters. International shipping compliance is specialized work, and Forward Movement has made a deliberate choice to leave that expertise where it belongs.

"I don't want to be an expert in international shipping. We have ePost Global for that!" says Kathy Jose, Director of Business Operations, Forward Movement.

How it works

Forward Movement distributes singles and bulk devotionals on a quarterly subscription basis; a standing-order model designed to be affordable and accessible for churches and individuals alike. Most shipments go to Canada, with additional distribution reaching New Zealand, Australia, France, England, and Germany. The Caribbean presents a unique routing challenge that the team handles through US Florida addresses for final delivery handoff.

The process is straightforward by design. Vicki generates and formats the international mail files, coordinates book counts with their printer, and hands off to ePost Global, which manages the bill of lading and logistics from there. The result: 

"99% of shipments reach their destination without issue" says Vicki Everett, Customer Service Specialist

For publishers, the details matter

For any publisher running a subscription model, the relationship between printing and shipping is a pressure point. A delay at the printer becomes a delay to subscribers. A missed address becomes a cancelled subscription. ePost Global's direct coordination with Forward Movement's printer means one fewer handoff for the operations team to manage: the pickup, the bill of lading, and the logistics handoff are handled without Forward Movement in the middle. And because ePost works directly with publisher mail files, address validation through a sophisticated tool isn't a generic service; it's calibrated to how subscriber lists actually look. For a publication that ships quarterly to thousands of readers, that accuracy isn't just operational housekeeping. It's subscriber retention.

Service as a the product

The partnership functions well because ePost Global treats service as the product, not shipping alone.

Address accuracy is one example. Through the software for Canada Post format compliance, ePost helps validate addresses before shipments go out, improving deliverability from roughly 50 percent to 95 percent, at no additional cost. For a nonprofit publisher sending to a global list of subscribers, that difference is meaningful.

Tracking is another. Through DDP priority parcel service, nearly every package now carries a tracking number, giving Forward Movement visibility that simply wasn't available in earlier years.

And when problems do arise, like a moved subscriber, a returned package, or a bad address, ePost's team communicates proactively, with a one-week window to resolve delivery issues before they become problems for the reader.

When the most recent Canada Post strike threatened to disrupt distribution, Forward Movement avoided major disruption entirely. ePost's private carrier network for parcel delivery kept shipments moving.

A community, supported

Forward Movement's work is about reaching people and offering daily spiritual resources to readers who depend on them. The logistics that make that possible should be invisible. For more than 20 years, ePost Global has made sure they are.