Update on Potential Merger between the Thoreau Society and Thoreau Farm Trust
Dear friends –
By now, we hope you’re heard about the idea of combining the Thoreau Society and the Thoreau Farm Trust into a new organization, one that joins the beautifully restored birth house of Henry Thoreau and the many exciting writing and place-based education programs of Thoreau Farm with the international membership, vibrant publications, and events like the Annual Gathering and the Thoreau Prize organized by the Thoreau Society.
We hope you’ve had a chance to join one of our open forums over the last few months, either online or in person. We will continue to welcome your comments, questions, and ideas. Please reach out to us at Thoreau Farm or the Thoreau Society – a phone call or an email is always welcome. We very much want this to be a thoughtful, inclusive, community-wide conversation. You can learn more about the proposed merger at both the Thoreau Farm website and the Thoreau Society website.
We are so grateful for the thoughtfulness and imagination that you have brought to this ongoing conversation. We echo your excitement that combining the cutting edge scholarship of the Thoreau Society with a true home in Concord at the birthplace would enrich the work to keep Thoreau active in the world and bring in the next generation of Thoreau enthusiasts and scholars. We share your dream of building the premiere organization for deep and meaningful engagement with Thoreau’s ideas both in Concord and across the world.
We are also thankful you have shared your concerns about maintaining those aspects of each organization that make them powerful. The academic rigor and intellectual exchange of the Society will continue in the publications, the Annual Gathering, and the spirit of the organization. The openness and access to Thoreau that the Farm provides for people from all backgrounds will also continue. It will not become a clubhouse for exclusive use of members and will continue to be a reliable support for partner organizations. We intend to safeguard these cultural assets as well as we safeguard the physical assets of the farmhouse and collections.
Many of you made it clear that you are supportive of a merger in theory, but have practical questions and are ready to dig into the details of how this organization will be structured and governed. The boards, encouraged by the responses in the community, are now continuing with the more detailed work of drafting potential by-laws and mapping out details of a new organization. We will keep you apprised every step of the way and ask for input and reactions at various points, so we can continue to shape this new organization together. Comments and questions are always welcome, either by reaching out to a member of the working group or boards or by submitting through this Google form.
Please note: this remains an exploratory process. Nothing has been decided except to keep examining this possibility from a variety of angles, and the boards of both organizations very much want to hear from everyone involved. Based on the many conversations we’ve had so far, we feel there is enough interest to warrant developing a more concrete proposal – many of your questions were about the details of how a merged organization might work, and for that, need to spend some more time and resources in drafting potential by-laws and thinking carefully about what we might call ourselves and how we might communicate our mission to the broad public. The boards of both Thoreau Farm and the Thoreau Society have agreed to move to this next step. When we have a concrete proposal that addresses the priorities of honoring the strengths of each organization and combining them for greater impact, both boards and the Thoreau Society membership will need to vote to approve.
This is an exciting opportunity at a challenging time for many non-profits as the funding landscape changes from day to day. We hope that a newly combined organization will offer new opportunities going forward and more resilience in the years ahead as we continue to bring Thoreau’s message to a world that very much needs it. Our strength is our community and our shared commitment to our goals, and we look forward to talking with all of you.
The Thoreau Farm & Thoreau Society Working Group
Court Booth, Molly Eberle, John Kucich, Nancy McJennett, Rebecca Migdal, Beverly Pittman, and Michael Schleifer