Amenity-laden glamour campgrounds, tiny houses, and high-end RVs are luring more Americans than ever to the great outdoors, exposing them to the beauty and fragility of the environment. That’s good: Mother Nature needs all the friends she can get.
But the cushy competition is proving problematic for Boston-based Appalachian Mountain Club, the nearly 150-year-old conservation and recreation organization whose expensive but rustic lodging isn’t necessarily what many postpandemic nature newbies want to pay for.
The news: AMC told me it recently laid off six employees and eliminated seven open jobs as it seeks to close a $2.5 million deficit in its $35 million operating budget. The move reduced headcount by 7.5 percent to 160 full-time workers.
Advertisem*nt
Driving the news: Chief executive Nicole Zussman said in an interview that the budget gap was the result of a drop in revenue as fewer guests stayed at AMC’s lodges and huts. Many of the organization’s facilities are dated, lacking features people are looking for these days, she conceded. Expenses, meanwhile, “went through the roof” due to inflation.
Affected employees “were in areas where we can operate more efficiently,” Zussman said. “We had to make hard choices.”
Details: One of those choices was to cancel the planned redevelopment of the old Baker Camp at Harriman State Park, about 40 miles north of Manhattan. Rising construction costs put the project out of financial reach. (AMC’s outdoor center at Harriman, opened in 2016 to attract metro New York residents, has become the group’s most popular destination and will remain open.)
Otherwise, Zussman said, she’s taking a close look at all of AMC facilities to determine whether they “meet the mission.”
Advertisem*nt
The bigger picture: Zussman said the job cuts were part of a restructuring she’s been working on since taking over in December 2022. (The influence of consultants was clear in the formal objectives AMC has laid out, among them: “Inspire joyous, meaningful outdoors experiences” and “Cultivate and sustain a diverse, robust, welcoming community.”)
Her priorities are equity — removing social and financial barriers to nature — and reaching people whose idea of a good time might be, say, a leisurely moonlight walk, not a trek up Mount Washington.
She said over the years some AMC employees had “focused on what they want to do rather than what the organization is trying to do.” But in the community of former AMC employees, there was grumbling that the layoffs were not sensitively handled despite Zussman’s background in human resources.
“I can tell you that we value tremendously all of the staff working here at AMC, and the decision to move forward with a reduction was not taken lightly,” Zussman said in a statement. “AMC gave the impacted individuals industry-standard severance packages.”
Looking back: The Appalachian Mountain Club, founded in1876, is best known for the hiking trails, huts, and lodges it maintains in New England and the mid-Atlantic states. Its Maine Woods Initiative has more than 100,000 acres of land used for recreation, resource protection, and sustainable forestry. The organization has hundreds of seasonal workers, thousands of volunteers, and more than 90,000 members.
Other AMC operations include a library, archive, policy department, and book sales.
“We are one of the more complex nonprofits out there,” said Zussman, and the challenge is “how can we most efficiently keep the mission-critical functions going.”
Advertisem*nt
She’s not alone. In February, another conservation-minded nonprofit, Trustees of Reservations, laid off 30 employees and eliminated 10 vacant positions. It cited a deficit caused by “significant global inflation.”
Looking forward: AMC’s bread-and-butter has been, in Zussman’s words, “hard-core outdoor recreation” popular with seasoned hikers from the Boston metro area looking for adventures in the New Hampshire mountains. It wants to do a better job serving anyone who wants to get outdoors, from Maine to Virginia, no matter their experience level.
“I want to be in growth mode,” Zussman said. “The plan is not to cut our way to financial stability.”
One headwind she’s facing is complaints about lodging prices.
One night for two adults and two children at AMC’s Lakes of the Clouds hut (shared bunkrooms and restroom) costs nearly $530 for members and $630 for nonmembers, with dinner and breakfast included, according to its website. One night in a private family tent at Sandy Pines runs about $300 without meals.
Final thought: Nonprofits aren’t immune to changing times. Those focused on outdoor recreation and the environment have to diversify their reach if they want to survive and have an impact.
Glamping isn’t for everyone. But neither is sleeping in a tent when you have to get up three times during the night to go to the bathroom.
Larry Edelman can be reached at larry.edelman@globe.com.
