Chapter 15: We're doing it!

...from coop bookstore to literary nonprofit

Dear Readers,

As Buffalo Street Books starts a radical new chapter in its long life, I’m eager to bring more people into our community, so I’ve turned off paid subscriptions (after having raised $3200 for the bookstore—thank you!) and have made all archived posts free to all readers. If you are curious about the backstory behind our change to a nonprofit, you might start with chapters 1-3 and 14. And if anything here inspires you to support our mighty store, please consider a donation of any amount. Onto the story.

When I last wrote, back in June, we were energetically pursuing the idea of transforming the cooperative into a not-for-profit, as a way to amplify our mission and place the store on more stable footing by building in grants and membership support. In the summer, it felt like things were falling into place. We obtained a grant from a local foundation for our legal fees. We engaged a fantastic lawyer, and in July we incorporated a New York State not-for-profit that we named Ithaca Literary Ltd, which has the same board as Buffalo Street Cooperative. Next item on the to-do list: ratify the bylaws of our new, for-now-only-on-paper enterprise.

And then the bookstore’s finances bottomed out.

Book sales were particularly low in January and February, then rebounded in March, sunk in April, and rose again in May and June. We were down for the year but the pattern was rhythmless and unpredictable. We were not prepared for July and August, when suddenly the accumulated losses were so great that we were in crisis mode. Bills to publishers went unpaid as we scraped together enough for payroll and rent.

Suddenly, we needed to figure out how to bring about this transformation, now incredibly urgent, from a position of weakness. We needed to build a bridge to a new land, but the ground underneath us was crumbling. We made a plan, week by week, for getting the bookstore to the end of November, when we could count on holiday sales to carry us along for a short time. But I’ll be honest with you: there were times when it didn’t look like we were going to make it and we would have to fold.

In October we launched an ambitious six-week fundraiser, still ongoing. Our goal is $100,000, an enormous sum—gargantuan—but that is the size of the hole, plus the money we need to slide the bookstore over to the not-for-profit (not all of our debts will transfer). This fundraiser is also a fervent conversation in Ithaca about the history and future of the bookstore as we educate our community about the legal transformation and bring as many people on board through our new membership program.

Here’s the new membership program: for an annual donation of $100, you get a 5% discount on all store purchases—plus voting rights in the new not-for-profit, which will still be community-run and -supported, just like the coop. This program seeks to replace both the expensive cooperative ownership shares and our free frequent buyer discount.

Our intention is to carry over as much of the cooperative as possible while adding new revenue streams. The not-for-profit will still be governed by a board of directors elected by the members. Lisa Swayze, BSB’s general manager, will become executive director. Crucially, all staff will retain their positions and their living wages. The main change will be this: active members of the not-for-profit will be those who pay the annual membership fee, which will give us a renewable and eventually predictable stream of community support. The not-for-profit will open us to grant funding and tax-deductible donations for our literary programming, and will allow us to employ work-study students from the colleges.

Another huge development: just days after the national election, when even the very word “vote” was triggering to many, we held a vote among our owners on the following: “Resolved: that Buffalo Street Cooperative should transfer all assets and debts to Ithaca Literary Ltd and the cooperative should disband.” 19.4% of our ownership voted and 96.9% voted in favor of the resolution—a clear and resounding show of strength for the continuation of the bookstore and the amplification of our mission.

As I write, we have raised two-thirds of our fundraising goal, with $52,000 in our Givebutter account and another $15,000 given directly to the store. This represents about 340 individual donors, most of whom have given between $10-$250, plus a few large donors. We have a ticketed and star-studded literary event coming up in December. We have two weeks left to go to meet our audacious goal.

The mountain of paperwork that confronts us is daunting. Even alongside running the bookstore, planning for the busiest season of the year, and fundraising like mad, we are writing grant applications and working with lawyers and bankers and the Department of Labor on each tiny step to bring the bookstore over the threshold. We don’t yet have a date on which the move will become official—there is so much that needs to happen.

But personally I feel immensely more optimistic and energized than I did a few months ago, because readers are coming through for us. We’ve gotten donations from the West Coast, from Europe, from people who live elsewhere but once shopped here, from students, from professors, from authors who have given readings here, from authors who debuted drafts of now-published books in our bookstore—from people who recognize the role of indie bookstores in the ecosystem of reading and writing.

More to come in this suspenseful story, whenever the action allows a break for writing it down. Thank you for reading this far, and thank you for considering how you can pitch in.

P.S. other ways to support Buffalo Street Books:

• spread the message to your network, forward this newsletter, subscribe to the bookstore on social media and post or repost

• shop with us! If you are local, come to the store or order online for free pickup. If you aren’t local, order at Bookshop and choose BSB as the store to receive the profit-sharing portion of your order

• donate used books if you are local (this is a small but mighty gesture since used books are pure profit for the store)

• send words of support for Lisa and the staff, who are working flat out to keep the store going on basically air and passion (email executiveboard@buffalostreetbooks.com)