Dear Friends of Soapstone,

After six months of discussion, research, and many consultations with nonprofit professionals, the Soapstone Board has decided to end the residency program. Soapstone, however, will continue, and we are excited to consider new ways we can use Soapstone's resources to support women writers.

The property is now for sale. We would liketo sell it to a land trust, an Oregon tribe, a group, or an individual who will appreciate its unique value as salmon and other wildlife habitat. We are therefore offering the property for sale privately until July 1 when it will be listed with a realtor if we haven't found a buyer. Click here to download a PDF with photos and detailed information about the property.

There has been a good deal of sadness in coming to these decisions. We have all been deeply attached to the residency program as well as to the place itself. And yet we are excited about new possibilities that emerged from a day-long brainstorming session that included past board members. Unlike many nonprofits which have had to close down in recent years, we have no debts. We have assets available to continue our mission, including the proceeds we will realize from the sale of the property and a reserve fund that has been soundly invested.

During the past twenty years, Soapstone has provided writing residencies to 375 women. We operated from a grassroots model, on a shoestring budget (at its highest it was never more than $50,000 a year), relying significantly on volunteers of all kinds, from architects, web designers, landscape architects, lawyers, nonprofit professionals and database specialists to the many hundreds of people who came out to the land to put up shelves, stack wood, maintain trails, and wash windows or, in the years before the internet, stuff envelopes for mailings.

The inspiration for the project came from the women's movement of the 1970s and 80s. Our focus was on women writers, who face special obstacles in finding the time and space for serious writing. We liked the notion that a group of ordinary people could work together to make something important happen in our community, without a founding bequest or permanent benefactor, a fancy office, high salaries, or exclusive fundraising events.

Central to our approach, and not incidental, was that friendships were forged, writing groups were formed, and for everyone involved, we felt our spirits lift, especially at times when the larger world was lost in war, genocide, and ongoing government corruption and cynicism. It sustained us to be creating something good, something important, even if small: a beautiful place where women could devote themselves solely to their writing. It is impossible to calculate the number of readers who are in some way nurtured, challenged, comforted and/or entertained by the work that was done there.

Although the need for such a place has not diminished (the last time we accepted applications we had close to 400 for 30 places) much has changed that affects the ability of a very small organization like ours to continue such an ambitious program.

We knew that it would be a difficult transition from the "founder era" in which Judith Barrington and Ruth Gundle provided leadership and volunteered their time extensively. (For fifteen years Ruth also served as the part-time director, for modest remuneration.) The Soapstone Board worked hard from the fall of 2008 until the spring of 2010 to make the transition to a new leadership model. Eventually we had to acknowledge that with our current budget and in these economic times, we didn't have the resources to make it work. The board would probably have persisted longer if it had not been for the downturn in the economy starting in 2008 that has impacted all nonprofits. Along with several other factors beyond our control, this called for a drastic re-thinking of our program.

We are extremely proud of what Soapstone has made possible over these past two decades and grateful to everyone who has participated in any way. The organization's passionate commitment to supporting women writers has not in any way faded. Nor has our commitment to fostering community. We look forward to inviting you to join us in this important work once we have charted a new course for Soapstone.

On behalf of the Soapstone Board,
Ann Dudley, President