Wood To Hand Reins To Next Gen at BALE

Chris Wood, the founder of BALE in South Royalton is preparing for retirement and handing off the reins to a new group of local leaders. (Herald File / Tim Calabro)

Unassuming yet influential, “gentle giant” Chris Wood has been organizing on behalf of communities across Vermont— and around this planet—for decades.

After a career in nonprofits, the 74-year-old is stepping back this year from his role as the executive director of Building A Local Economy (BALE), an organization based in the White River Valley, to make space for new voices.

 “Almost every beneficial nonprofit that you hear about in Vermont, he had a role in starting it,” Deborah Aldrich of Stockbridge said of Wood, a close friend and fellow member of the White River Investment Club.

Wood’s legacy has given him a unique perspective on the inherent problems of the nonprofit model. Before he departs, BALE is experimenting with a non-hierarchical organization model, as well as confronting some of the big questions about non-profits.

“We need to be rethinking how we share our wealth, and our relations, and our love for each other, in a very different way,” Wood said. “I don’t have easy answers yet.”

Trailblazing Career

Wood came to Vermont from Massachusetts in the early ’70s to attend Goddard College. He came across Bread and Puppet Theater on move-in day and joined immediately.

“Early on I was involved in leveraging art to get messages across about different political things,” he said. “Bread and Puppet was the inspiration that got me going.”

This began Wood’s almost 50-year career in Vermont, co-founding 14 nonprofits and working with dozens more focusing on art, agriculture, local communities, and the environment.

As he put it, “The more strength and capacity [there is] locally, the more you’ve woven the community together in different ways, the more it will be able to survive.”

By 1994, Wood’s efforts were so trusted that, rather than receive grants through a specific nonprofit, Wood was funded directly, giving him complete freedom in what he wanted to pursue.

When asked about the skills that led to his success, he said it was in connecting people.

“There’s an energy that comes from gathering with others, coming together to create something that’s inspiring, beautiful, maybe even important,” he said.

BALE 

Wood moved to the Upper Valley in 2003, eventually settling down in Tunbridge, where he built an off-grid solar home with his wife Sylvie. At first, he was working in Barre at the Central Vermont Community Land Trust, now called Downstreet, a statewide affordable housing initiative.

By 2009, the carbon-fueled commute to Barre seemed excessive to Wood and he “always knew local was better,” and so began organizing people in the Upper Valley for community conversations.

The first initiative was a farm-to-school program that brought local food into South Royalton High School, picking up on the longtime efforts of the late Rep. Rozo McLaughlin. Thus began Building a Local Economy, which was legally established in March 2011. 

BALE has since evolved into a multifaceted organization active in all corners of the Upper Valley, with six members on the board of directors and another 30 in its “advisory circle.”

BALE is best known for its public presentations. It has hosted series on soil health, community revitalization and local investing. Ron Miller, who served on the board of directors for three years, said the well-attended talks “got people thinking about resilience and how we could improve our communities.”

A free gallery and community space on the South Royalton green was hosting 160 events a year before the pandemic. 

Through his work, Wood aimed to push economic boundaries beyond the U.S. dollar, explaining “a monoculture in anything is never a good idea.”

The White River Investment Club grew out of a BALE event and seeks to localize investments away from Wall Street and into the local economy. BALE is currently developing the White River Time Bank, a bartering system which will allows folks to circumvent the money economy by trading their time with one another.

Stepping Away

For the past year, Wood and a transition team of three young people have been rethinking BALE’s structure as he begins to step back, concerned by what he called the “nonprofit industrial complex.”

Nonprofits, according to Mindy Blank, executive director of Community Resilience Organizations and a member of BALE’s board, have become a tax-free way for the wealthy to control their money and thus maintain old power structures. Nonprofits hoard White wealth and are beholden to philanthropy and outdated policy.

The transition team is experimenting with different ways to flatten the power structure within BALE to allow for more voices.

Paige Heverly, the treasurer of the board, described 2021 as the year of experimentation.

“There’s no roadmap for a non-hierarchical structure,” she said.

For Wood, the past few years have been a time for personal reflection on the impacts of white supremacy and inequality.

“Us old folks, as much as we are aware of climate change and gross inequality and all of that, it’s harder for us to actually embody that in ourselves” he said.

Blank highlighted Wood’s openness to addressing these difficult topics as an example of his character.

“He really does embody that spirit of relationship building in the work culture that he has cultivated.”

Heverly agreed, adding, “He’s a wonderful teacher, and a wonderful student.”

By the end of the year Wood will retire from the role of executive director, but that doesn’t mean he is stepping back completely.

“I’ve always recognized that my work in the world is just part of a continuum,” he said. “I am not gonna find some rocking chair to sit in and let the world collapse.”