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VERMONT'S VOICE FOR THE LESBIAN, GAY,
BISEXUAL & TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

BY KIM HOWARD

he decision was difficult.

Sitting in the basement of

the Champlain Mill last
month, all seven Mountain Pride
Media Board members pored
over financial statements. For
months, the organization that

’ ‘publishes Out in the Mountains

had been relying on its savings
and scrambling for donations
to cover monthly shortfalls,
while board members tried to .
restructure staff and operations
and build a revenue model that
worked. Though the monthly ex-
pense gap was closing, progress
was not fast enough. Available
funds were just a couple of hun-
dred dollars —— even before staff
was paid for Novembe'r’s work.

The organization could not
afford to go on. f

After 21 years of service
to the community, Out in the
Mountains comes to a close
with this final issue.

We want the community to
know how we got here. But
we also want to celebrate and
honor the love, energy, time and
passion put forth by so many
people — board members and
editors, writers and distributors,
donors and advertisers, and a
host of other volunteers — for
the last two decades.

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introduced in‘Mo.ntPe“9'

How we got here

Dan Brink, former Board presi-
dent and volunteer for eight '
years, said he first knew there
were problems about four years
ago, when the budget had to be
cut by a third.

Activity had increased ex-

’ ponentially starting in 1999,

Brink said, when the Vermont
Supreme Court told the legisla-
ture to grant same-sex couples
the same rights as heterosexual
couples had in marriage.

“With all the attention that
brought to Vermont, it also -
brought volunteers, donations
and grants” to the paper, Brink
said. Subscriptions went up, as
did advertising dollars.

But the energy and money

—were not sustained.

“During the good years, we
tried to convert it (from mostly
volunteer) into an organization ’
that was paying the key staff,”
Brink said. Eventually, the
editor’s tiny stipend grew into.

a modest part-time salary, and
a part-tirne operations manager
was hired.

“It never quite worked,”
Brink said. “We were never able
to get an advertising model that
would allow for that after things
got more difficult.”

The economy shifted and na-

 

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tional advertising — a substan-
tial revenue source .— dropped
off, Brink said. Volunteer en-
ergy, still vital to the operation,
also dwindled.

Last spring, the two remain-
ing board members, president
Brian Cote and secretary Greg
Weaver, met with community
members seeking.involvement
and support. A strategic plan-
ning goup recommended hiring
a full-time executive director
to focus on raising money and
managing advertising, distribu-
Iion and operations. Weaver was
hired. But everyoneknew it was
a risk; money was already tight.

Cote said the struggle to nur-
ture new board members —— and
the workload the small board
carried —. perhaps caused them
to lose sight of daily operational
struggles the paper had had for

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years. He said it was perhaps
naive for the Board and strate-
gic planning committee to think
a full-time executive director
could simultaneously do all of
the operational tasks and bring
in money.

But the reality, too, said both
Cote and Brink, is that the media
landscape has shifted. While 20
years ago, there was no Internet
and no mainstream coverage of
gay issues, now there are both.
Among queer media, Out in the
Mountains has been one of a ,
handful of nonprofit newspapers
in the country. Others had folded,
or had become for-profit.’

Also, MPM decided long ago
it would not sell ads for tobacco,
alcohol or bath-
houses, which
often provide key
revenue to for-prof-
it LGBT papers.

“There were
healthier ways

   

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In the OITM Says Good-bye
"“'“"“"“5 Celebrating 21Years!

 

to be gay, and we wanted to
explore those,” said Euan Bear,
a former 01 TM editor. “The
choice has cost_us, because we-
chose to not be exploitive of
our own community.” ,

Cote said he thinks changing
ad policy would only have been a,
short—term fix -

“I think people in the com-

. munity would have had an

incredibly difficult time with

- that sort of advertising in our

newspaper," Cote said. “We
would have continued to lose
both "traditional advertisers, and
I think, our subscriptions would
have dropped even further.”

- CONTINUED ON P.3 -)

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