Permaculture Activist • PO Box 5516 • Bloomington IN 47407 USA • 812-335-0383

1 February 2015

	Permaculture Activist magazine is on the cusp of rebirth, and after nearly 25 years as publisher, I am stepping down soon, turning the reins over to Senior Editor John Wages. I write today to thank you for your support of the journal over many years and to ask for your help going forward.
	Several things will change with ownership on April 1st (no joke!), but many important things will not. The name Permaculture Activist will retire with me to more private use, while the journal that you have received for many years will continue as Permaculture Design Magazine. We will retain the numbering system, so that not only will this gutsy little publishing endeavor celebrate its 30th anniversity in July, it will live to see issue #100 appear next year in May. Our quarterly rhythm and publishing dates will stay the same as will the general format of the print magazine for the near future. Page length, content focus, editorial policies, etc. will not change rapidly. All paid subscriptions, including and especially life subscriptions, will be fulfilled.
	New efforts to be rolled out in the next few months include a parallel digital version available online and by subscription, digitizing of back issue content—which will be made available over the Web to subscribers and others for a fee, and a much improved online presence, made easier both to navigate and for us to maintain. The website is being redesigned as I write; the new look, with both old and new content, should be in place before the end of March.
	All of this is timely and important to me personally. I will remain in an emeritus role with the magazine as a reviewer and feature writer for the foreseeable future, contributing as I am able. I will also remain exposed financially and thus vested in the success of John Wages’ business for at least three years. 
	John is a trained biologist, a college teacher, and a sometimes player in the strange world of high-tech start-up companies. He lives with his wife Gwen in Silicon Valley but remains rooted in NE Mississippi where he has a family farm and aging parents who will draw him back there in the next few years. Tupelo isn’t just the birthplace of Elvis Presley, it should provide an excellent mid-continental location for distributing magazines and other goods in the same way that our Bloomington location has done this past decade. We will continue to use the same printer in central Illinois whose good people have worked well with us for more than 20 years, so subscribers should see little change in fulfillment practices. Over time, John is likely to find ways to improve our operation in the manner that he has in the past helped to re-organize and make profitable various promising tech companies. I am hopeful and I ask that you send us your good wishes and suggestions for a renewal of our shared project.
	To aid in the transition and to fund these new digital ventures, which are essential if the magazine is to remain commercially viable in the coming years, we are launching a Kickstarter fundraising campaign online concurrent with the publication of issue #95. It should be in place as you read this letter.
	If you are able to help us, we would greatly appreciate a donation. It is important in building momentum for the Kickstarter that a good bit of money comes in during the first week. As you may know, KS takes no funds from donors until the campaign goal is met (we are asking for $15,000, and would welcome more). That means we must flex our networks to stimulate contributions. Kickstarter do exact a fee, over and above the credit-card processing charges, but we regard this as reasonable (less than 10%) in view of the capacities their system affords us to reach a wide audience.
	An exact URL will be determined shortly, and we will post it at our website and elsewhere, but you can go to Kickstarter.com and search easily for “Permaculture Activist” now and at any time in the next 45 days. You will then be directed right to our campaign. Pledges made there will help us attract additional donations from curious viewers, friends, and those committed to permaculture work. We are offering premiums that we believe are generous; we hope they will encourage those on the edge to step up and give.
	We would certainly not turn down direct donations, which may be sent to the Bloomington address (above), but your pledge to Kickstarter, despite fee erosion, will leverage more donations to our ultimate benefit.
	We have operated the magazine with fiscal prudence for the past quarter century and are able to assure you that future issues will be published and shipped, but we face, more than ever before, a crowded marketplace of ideas with significant costs of access. We need to recapitalize. Computers and software donated to us in 2008 are still serviceable, but are functionally obsolete and need to be upgraded. Though we have laid the groundwork for accessing back issues by preparing and publishing indexes of the first 90 issues (with regular annual indexes planned for the future) the digital projects have costs that will be challenging to cover under our present business model. As a service-oriented and reader-driven publication with a vitally important but still too little understood mission, we turn to our community at this crucial juncture for support.
	In the hope that permaculture can expand its reach to help people in North America and around the world address humanity’s dire predicament, I remain 

sincerely yours,

Peter Bane
Publisher