IN OTHER WORDS, the last surviving nonprofit feminist
bookstore in the United States (located right here in Portland,
Oregon), almost died this month.
“This is the most extreme situation we’ve ever been in,” says Katie
Carter, program director for the NE Killingsworth store that has been a
pillar in Portland’s feminist community for 15 years. In recent months,
several of Portland’s political print media outlets, both large and
small, have suddenly threatened closure. To survive, some are
rethinking their business models while others are hoping their loyal
communities can pull them through the financial meltdown.
In Other Words routinely borrows money to buy books, paying off the
loans after the books sell. But from June to December this year, sales
were $16,000 less than those same months in 2007, leaving the store to
fill a steep difference before the end of this year. After announcing a
desperate call for help at the beginning of December, donations flooded
into the little store—over $13,000 in less than two weeks, which
is enough to keep the community bookstore’s doors open for now.
But the crisis made In Other Word’s board of directors realize their
old model wasn’t going to cut it in this dire financial climate. “We’re
focusing on operating better as a nonprofit,” says Carter. “Donations
have to be a big part of our income—we obviously can’t make it
just as a bookstore.”
In Other Word’s situation sounded familiar to Portland
feminists—locally based national feminist magazine Bitch fell into a similar money pit in September. Donors pitched in $40,000
in just a few days to keep the magazine afloat.
“It’s a sign that people definitely see our work as still relevant
and powerful,” says Bitch Publisher Debbie Rasmussen from a sofa
in the magazine’s NE Alberta office. Bitch is refocusing its
model on functioning more like a nonprofit than a newsstand
magazine.
“Fundraising should be in every part of our work,” explains
Rasmussen, as employees in the next room film a video of animated bees
asking readers to become donors. “Any time an organization takes the
high road of forgoing rich parent companies, it’s going to be
difficult… we have to constantly be reminding people that their
support is crucial to our existence.”
Smaller print media outlets in town are teetering on the brink of
closure, too. Blackrose Collective, a bookstore and anarchist community
space on N Mississippi, said in November that it’s in danger of not
making rent during the winter months. Laughing Horse Books, on NE 10th,
has been touch and go financially for a while.
“We have certainly been hurting,” says Dominic, a Laughing Horse
volunteer and “people servant” who preferred to keep his last name out
of print and said the collective store has cut two paid positions.
“We’re just going to keep trying to brainstorm and organize events,”
says Dominic.
In the last three years, rising rent pushed both In Other Words and
Laughing Horse out of their previous storefronts on SE Hawthorne and SE
Division, respectively. The new locations have less foot traffic, but
their doors are determined to stay open.