Thurber House, a Columbus nonprofit for writers, is in dire need of financial support

Who was James Thurber?

To faithful readers of The New Yorker magazine, the humorist was a comic icon noted for his astringent take on middle American life in the last century. His classic short stories include “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” and his comic doodles, frequently focused on canines, are numerous. Born in Columbus in 1894, Thurber often let his mind drift to his hometown for artistic inspiration. He died in 1961.

For the last 40 years, no organization has done more to further Thurber’s local legacy than Thurber House, the literary center that, since 1984, has operated at 77 Jefferson Ave. on the Near East Side. The house, which was occupied by the Thurber family from 1913 through 1917, is decorated in a manner that approximates its condition a century ago, and it hosts author talks and writing workshops. Since 1997, Thurber House has administered the Thurber Prize for American Humor, whose recipients include Christopher Buckley, David Sedaris and Trevor Noah.

Yet, many in the younger generations aren’t familiar with, or can’t connect with, the organization’s namesake, says Thurber House Executive Director Laurie Lathan.

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“If you say the name Kurt Vonnegut, a lot of them know the name,” says Lathan, contrasting Thurber House with the similar Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library in Indianapolis. “It’ll resonate. But when you say James Thurber, not so much.”

That lack of name recognition is given as one of the reasons for Thurber House’s recent financial struggles. In 2020, to ensure viability amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the center initiated an emergency fundraising drive and accepted a CARES Act-funded award from the Ohio Arts Council.

Now the center has launched an equally urgent plea for $200,000. “Thurber House is struggling to remain open and fulfill our mission,” reads the text accompanying the appeal, which, as of press time in late January, had generated about half of its goal. Thurber House has already reduced its staff from six to four, laying off a full-time marketing and development director and an education coordinator.

“Thurber House has never had any fat in its budget,” says Lathan. The organization’s budget for its most recent fiscal year, ending June 30, was about $760,000. Among the biggest challenges are increases in operating expenses that outpace growth in revenue and giving, she says.

“If our light bills continue to increase, and now our health insurance, how are we making up that difference in money?” Lathan says. “It’s a long-term issue that I, as an arts leader, look at. How are arts organizations and nonprofits in general going to continue to retain quality employees if they can’t afford to hire someone?”

Lathan says Thurber House, which does not have an endowment, has been underfunded. She says corporate giving lags because the center falls between two priorities. “Some companies … have pools of funds for fine arts and performing arts,” Lathan says. “They don’t know where to put Thurber House because we’re not a dance company [or] a theater company, and then we’re not an art museum. So we aren’t qualified for some of that funding because of that.”

Other problems include the emergence of bookstores and libraries hosting the sort of revenue-generating author events that used to be the near-exclusive domain of Thurber House. Plus, despite the money raised during COVID, the pandemic put a seemingly permanent dent in attendance at many events. “We’ve lost some of our older patrons,” Lathan says. “Since COVID, they’ve either not come back or they’ve actually passed away.”

This “perfect storm,” as Lathan puts it, necessitated the present fundraising campaign, which was launched in lieu of Thurber House’s annual holiday appeal. “We just determined this is how much money that we need to get us through to the end of the year, and to land the year in the black,” she says. Major projects that would necessitate a capital campaign, such as making improvements to the house 40 years after its renovation, are not being considered until the center’s financial situation improves. “We can’t even get to that point because we need to keep the lights on, we need to keep programs going,” she says.

One Thurber House program that has demonstrated resiliency is its kids’ summer writing camp, which has returned to an approximation of pre-pandemic levels. To build on that success, the organization has been “edging up” fees for educational programs, Lathan says, and plans to start offering off-site “satellite” camps throughout Central Ohio.In search of other revenue streams, the organization plans to start selling publishers and libraries seals to be affixed to the covers of books whose authors have won or been named finalists of the Thurber Prize.

Michael Rosen, Thurber House’s founding literary director who was with the organization from 1983 to 2001, laments what he views as the organization’s fall from its past heights. He bemoans a lack of partnerships with other arts groups—the sort of collaborations that resulted in a Thurber-inspired musical composition by the nonprofit and the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra in 1994—as well as the emphasis on bringing in authors simply because they are touring. “We defined the Thurber House readings as literature,” Rosen says of the approach to author events iwn his day.

Rosen, also the editor or author of books on Thurber, admits the humorist’s star is not what it once was. “At the beginning of the Thurber House, there were many people who grew up on Thurber, who knew Thurber, people even who knew him personally here in town,” Rosen says. Even so, he sees celebrating Thurber as a foundational mandate of Thurber House. “To anthologize [Thurber’s] short pieces, or to keep them alive in the current curriculum, is difficult, which is partly the reason why the house had a mission: Hey, it’s our job to call attention to this native son,” he says.

For her part, Lathan says Thurber will remain at the heart of its mission, but by necessity, it has to broaden its programming. “How do we get people engaged at Thurber House,” she says, “if they don’t know who James Thurber is?

This story appeared in the March 2025 issue of Columbus Monthly. Subscribe here.

This article originally appeared on Columbus Monthly: Thurber House financial struggles: Why the literary nonprofit is struggling