Marlissa Briggett and Scott Lajoie founded the South Coast Almanac a decade ago to capture the region between Fall River and Buzzards Bay, taking inspiration in part from the legendary New England periodical Yankee magazine.
The Almanac has a website, but the emphasis is on its print magazine, a crisp glossy that aims to highlight the South Coast’s natural landscapes, arts scene, and culinary diversity with original photography and a sleek, uncluttered aesthetic. Inside the quarterly issues are features like how local businesses are “upcycling” old textiles, a restaurant guide, and an events calendar.
That is to say, the Almanac is clearly not an environmental publication. But that didn’t stop Mark Rasmussen, longtime president of the Buzzards Bay Coalition, from bringing the Almanac under the environmental nonprofit’s ownership in late 2024.
“They view our region the same way Buzzards Bay Coalition always did, and the way that I do,” Rasmussen said. “The stories that they covered, the feel of the magazine, the photos they captured, the people they chose to highlight always felt very much in sync with my view of what the South Coast is.”
The mashup is an unlikely partnership at a difficult time for print media — and one that prompted questions from some readers who worried that the new owners might transform the lifestyle publication into a mouthpiece for the Coalition.
But the Coalition’s absorption of the magazine was not for financial reasons, nor do its new owners plan to change anything about its coverage. Instead, according to leaders at both outfits, the organizations observed that they had overlapping interests and could be stronger together.
Buzzards Bay is an environmentally sensitive area, and the Coalition plays a major role in helping to keep the water clean and preserving other parts of the ecosystem. The Almanac is all about chronicling life in the region, which naturally includes the outdoors.
“Here were these two organizations with the same ethos, which was basically ‘you have to love where you live,’” said Briggett, who remains publisher of the Almanac.
Rasmussen had been a fan of the magazine from the start and one day over coffee with Briggett he was discussing how the Coalition’s web presence “has always been weak.” He asked if she would come onboard to run communications, and they agreed that the magazine would come along as well. She serves as vice president of public engagement, while Lajoie, the Almanac’s editor, joined the Coalition as communications director.
The two organizations officially joined forces at the end of 2024 and announced the change in adjoining letters to readers in the Almanac’s holiday issue. Briggett donated the publication to the Coalition, meaning no money changed hands.
Prior to joining the Coalition, which is headquartered in New Bedford, the Almanac operated as a for-profit organization. Though it is now part of a larger nonprofit, there are no plans to change its business model: 95 percent of its revenue comes from advertising, and the remaining comes from subscriptions.
The magazine has a circulation of roughly 10,000, and fewer than 1,000 people pay for direct subscriptions — instead of buying it at local stores in Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Onset, and other towns in the region. The Almanac’s staff all work part-time, but Briggett, Lajoie, and art director Hannah Haines also have full-time roles at the Coalition. Additionally, the magazine hires freelance photographers and writers to help fill out its pages. The magazine isn’t profitable, but it is “able to leverage the magazine staff to engage in the communications, graphic design, and public engagement needs of the Coalition,” Briggett said.
Naturally, the relatively new arrangement raised questions for readers about what changes would be made, if any, and whether there could be conflicts in covering the Almanac.
“I was worried,” said Lindsay Miś, executive director of the Massachusetts Design, Art, and Technology Institute and an Almanac subscriber. But so far, she said, hasn’t seen “any heavy hand” from the Coalition and, if anything, the Almanac has been more creative in its design than before.
“It doesn’t look like your local foodie magazine,” she said, adding that the quality of its text designs, font choices, compositions, and photos help it stand out.
John Bullard, the former mayor of New Bedford who has served on the Buzzards Bay Coalition board in the past, first said he was surprised to hear about the merger, before quickly adding that nothing Rasmussen does is a surprise to him anymore.
“Mark doesn’t do things that he hasn’t thought through,” Bullard said. “He’s answering all the questions before I or anyone else has the chance to ask them.”
“This was another way to reach people. I think it makes total sense for the Coalition,” he added. For the Almanac, he said that its “relationship with the Coalition connects them more deeply and more broadly to the South Coast region.”
As for potential conflicts, Briggett, the publisher, said that they “are less than you would think.”
“It’s not like we’re doing investigative journalism,” she said.
While the Coalition has naturally come up in the Almanac’s coverage, there isn’t a dedicated beat reporter covering the environment or the Coalition itself.
“If we work it in, then great, because the Coalition is part of the South Coast, and we can put environmental stories in, but we’re not going to make it look like we’re forcing the Coalition’s work onto our readers,” he said.
Briggett and Lajoie’s dual roles, however, are a strange arrangement that they acknowledge. They’re always working for the Coalition, which means they have to wear multiple hats, especially when the Almanac’s publication date is nearing.
While the magazine now lives under the Coalition, Rasmussen said he has no involvement with the editorial functions and wants Briggett and Lajoie to continue the work of the last 10 years of the Almanac.
He pointed to other nonprofit organizations such as the Sierra Club and the Nature Conservancy that have magazines, but that’s never been a goal for the Coalition. He argued that the best way to communicate the importance of the environment is to implement it into broader coverage of the region, which will also reach a larger audience.
“There’s the quality of schools in your town. There’s crime in your town. There’s fiscal management by your municipality. If the environment is just one of the many things on the list, it’s always sort of going to be sidelined,” he said. “It’s part of the fabric of who we are as a region.”
Aidan Ryan can be reached at aidan.ryan@globe.com. Follow him @aidanfitzryan.