MarketWatch’s Livability series features Ossipee-based Josh Arnold, Founder and Director of the nonprofit Global Awareness Local Action (GALA).
Arnold is a self-proclaimed “accidental director” of a nonprofit. He shares his experience of doing “some educational stuff around sustainability, showing documentaries at the library, having little demonstration booths at the farmers market, like Composting 101 or How to Make Biodiesel.”
Then he started slowly doing this full time, and was “kind of accidental”.
Arnold shares GALA’s first big success (how they installed these solar clothes driers for people) and how they have celebrated GALA’s 10th anniversary. He and his team is now working to establish a community maker space, a business incubator, a community center, a tool library, and a bike share.
GALA’s funding came from their big capital campaign where they got a $250,000 federal grant. They did a matching capital campaign for $250,000 where they were able to buy a building.
With GALA’s new building, they are working with architects to create a space that’s accessible and hip for New Hampshire’s young professionals to hang out in.