The Mt. Adams Institute has announced that it will dissolve and cease operations effective Dec. 31, 2026. The Southwest Washington nonprofit provides educational and career opportunities in the outdoors through partnerships with agencies such as the U.S. National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service. It pairs young adults and U.S. military veterans with internship opportunities in outdoor resource management roles, ranging from trail maintenance and construction to environmental education.
Around 95% of its budget came from contracts with federal agencies. Though the loss of federal funding wasn’t the only factor in the organization’s decision to dissolve, the budget cuts initiated a ripple effect that left the organization facing layoffs and other financial strains. It’s one example of a wider-reaching fallout for nonprofits in the wake of federal funding cuts across the U.S.
Mt. Adams Institute Executive Director Aaron Stanton joins us to discuss how the loss of federal funding has impacted the organization’s work.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Geoff Norcross: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Geoff Norcross, in for Dave Miller. The Mt. Adams Institute is shutting down. The Southwest Washington nonprofit created internship opportunities for veterans and young adults in outdoor research management. But earlier this year, the organization said the one-two punch of federal funding cuts and the loss of key staff made it impossible to continue. This year will be its last.
Here to talk about this difficult decision is Mt. Adams Institute executive director Aaron Stanton. Aaron, welcome to Think Out Loud. It’s good to have you.
Aaron Stanton: Yeah, thanks Geoff for the invitation. I appreciate it.
Norcross: We will get deeper into the decision in a minute, but just to get a sense of what’s being lost here, can you tell me more about what the Mt. Adams Institute [MAI] does?
Stanton: Mt. Adams Institute has been an organization that really our mission is strengthening the connection between people in the natural world. We did that in a lot of ways. We had youth summer camps, we had outdoor school programming. But our biggest programs have been our vets work and land stewards programs, which are designed to help young adults and veterans find career pathways in the public lands and natural resources management sector. I think what we’re gonna lose, with MAI’s dissolution, is a really unique veteran focus that we’ve had over the years and the impact that those programs have had on our public lands.
Norcross: Why do you think it’ll be especially impactful for veterans when this organization goes away?
Stanton: My belief is that we’ve addressed the career transition for veterans from the military workforce to the civilian workforce in a really unique way. We’ve opened up opportunities for them, individually, but I also believe we’ve helped our federal agencies who have always had a commitment to bringing more veterans into the workforce. I think we’ve created easier pathways and smoother transitions because of the approach that we’ve implemented over the years.
Norcross: What might veterans, or young adults for that matter who’ve gone through your programs, go on to do in natural resource management? What are some success stories maybe?
Stanton: We’ve really had a wide range of impacts with our federal partners. I always say that pretty much anything that our federal agencies do, we’ve probably had at least a piece of. From the traditional recreation management and trail building to front office staff. We’ve had folks transition into records departments, archaeology, just really a broad range of needs that our federal partners have, but that our veterans and young adults have an interest in pursuing as well.
Norcross: You mentioned your federal partners. Who were they in this effort?
Stanton: Our largest partner has always been U.S. Forest Service, but we’ve had an amazing long-term partnership with NOAA, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park [Service] as well. We’ve also supported local nonprofits and conservation districts with our programs.
Norcross: What happened?
Stanton: It’s kind of a twisting road that we’ve been down for the last few years. Our founder transitioned out about three years ago. So we were building back through some of that turmoil. And in 2025, we had just hit our stride. We had restabilized. We had an amazing team. We had a really supportive board, and we were primed to really build back to the peak of our programming over the years. Then January 20th hit and everything just came to a screeching halt.
Norcross: And just to be absolutely clear, January 20, 2025 was Inauguration Day.
Stanton: Yeah, that’s when all of the executive orders started to really impact what we do. Most of what we do, as I was saying earlier, is partnered with federal agencies. Funding was frozen. The development of our new partnerships, for the coming program year, were all frozen. There was no guarantee that we were going to be paid for work that had already been done. There was no information about what to expect in the coming months.
We’re not a large organization, we didn’t have the cash to carry all of those program members, all of those partnerships and all of our staff, in the hopes that we’d get reimbursed for those through the partnerships that we had already signed. At that point, we had to make the decision to lay off five of our nine staff – this just amazing team that we had put together. It was really the most heartbreaking part of any of this.
Norcross: What was that day like?
Stanton: Our leadership team had been pretty transparent with folks all along, and we were in constant conversation about the plans we could make, the things that we could predict and the things that we couldn’t. I think when we made the announcement to staff that we were going to have to move in that direction, they were somewhat prepared for it. We gave as much buffer as we could. We told them a month ahead of time and tried to do all we could to help them find other opportunities. But it was gut-wrenching.
Norcross: Can you be specific about the funding that you lost? What did you get and what did you have to do without?
Stanton: We had some agreements that were still in the works or that we were currently running programs under. The money wasn’t pulled from those agreements, but the payments were frozen. That was at a time in our programming where we were just at the tail end of programs, so there were maybe a handful of 10 or 12 members still in the program. But we were in the process of building our new agreements for the coming year and that was to the tune of probably about $1.5 million. All of that was frozen. So we had no way to plan for and hire those program members for the coming year.
Norcross: I can imagine, for an organization like yours, $1.5 million is a lot. Can you put that in terms of percentage of your budget?
Stanton: Yes. That year, according to our planned budget, it’s about 60% of our operating costs that year.
Norcross: Wow. And when you made the gut-wrenching decision to lay off this staff, were you still operating on the hope at least, or maybe the plan, to still have some sort of an operation in place?
Stanton: Yes. So the four of us that remained were the four who had been here the longest and understood the operations the best. We intended to downsize and run the programs at whatever capacity we could, while building a new model that reduced our dependence on those federal contracts.
Again, we had a really good plan. We had a really amazing team that was able to kind of look past this uncertainty and find new directions forward. So we knew, at least based on our cash reserves, that the four of us could at least spend nine to 12 months building that new approach.
Norcross: Then talk to me about the decision to ultimately dissolve. What went into that decision?
Stanton: This is one of the things that I felt was important that people understood. While the decisions that came out of the White House had a devastating impact on us as an organization, I don’t want to lay all of our dissolution on those decisions. Because I think that undermines our skill and our strategy, that I think the four of us could have powered through this, and I think we could have succeeded.
But life is also a part of the mix. So part of that was my planned retirement. My wife and I are planning to retire at the end of this year. I bring a lot of the historical knowledge and perspective. Which again, we could have powered through. But then our HR Director had to make the decision, again a tough decision, to go and care for her parents. So then [she] also wasn’t going to be able to be a part of the rebuilding. And when you lose half of your institutional knowledge, it becomes really difficult to rebuild from that.
So as we talked through this as a staff and with our board, there wasn’t a future that we could see, in trying to rebuild. Especially because we don’t know what’s happening, again, with this year’s budget. Most of it’s been passed, but will that actually hit the pavement is still a question.
Norcross: There were four people left. How did the others react when you told them that you wanted to close up shop and retire at the end of the year?
Stanton: Again, especially with the four of us, we’ve always been on the same page. Communication was part of the whole process. So as we started to look at our future, we did it together. So it wasn’t a surprise announcement to them, it was a decision we all made together with our board. I think we all feel the same way. We feel a sense of loss of something that was amazing for almost a decade-and-a-half, that impacted countless individual lives as well as our public lands and our natural resources. But I think we take comfort in that good work that we’ve done. The fact that we’re shutting down doesn’t minimize all of that. I think we all have that same belief at this time.
Norcross: Aaron, I’m wondering what the disappearance of MAI means for this market, this work of connecting people with jobs in the outdoor industry. Are there other people out there still doing this work?
Stanton: Yeah, there’s a large network of nonprofits that do this kind of work across the country. Here in the Pacific Northwest, there’s Northwest Youth Corps, Heart of Oregon Corps, Washington Conservation Corps. There are a lot of organizations that have their own struggles right now, and certainly I’m not in the know about what their financial situation is. But they’re continuing to struggle forward and find a pathway through.
So that the primary work of connecting mainly youth and young adults to natural resources and public lands work will continue. It will probably look different in the coming years. And a lot of that depends on what else comes out of the administration in the coming couple of years.
Norcross: What does the work of just winding things down over the next eight months actually look like? How are you going to exit cleanly, if at all possible?
Stanton: Yeah, it’s interesting. I’ve never done this before, so we’re figuring this out as we go with certainly some help. But I think our focus is on running our programs this year for the last time, without any reduction in the impact that we feel is important. Then I do think it’s going to be sharing resources that we have with others that are going to continue on, other nonprofits that have been a part of who we are, have inspired us, have helped us get to where we got to. So it’s a matter of closing out all of those kinds of partnerships. Then just the logistics of the physical property here, the equipment that we have. It’s a pretty involved process, but we’re kind of learning it as we go.
Norcross: Could anything happen between now and the end of the year that might change your mind?
Stanton: My decision to head into retirement is, I think, not up for debate at this point. I suppose there could be some big revelation that there’s another organization out there that could pick this up and carry this on. But I do believe that what we do is not as simple as just handing off the physical structure of our organization. There’s a lot of heart that went into, not only creating these programs, but running them. It’s just so nuanced. I don’t think without the four of us, it would be an easy thing to hand off to somebody else.
Norcross: Aaron Stanton, thank you so much for this and best of luck in your retirement.
Stanton: Geoff, thanks so much. I appreciate being on the show.
Norcross: Aaron Stanton is the executive director of the soon to be shuttered Mt. Adams Institute.
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