Sojourners Portal LTD is a collaborative story telling venture dedicated to supporting and expanding the New England live-action roleplaying community by fostering diversity and acceptance as well as pushing the boundaries of what LARPing can be as a hobby.
The Portal started as an idea to bring in a new era of LARPing. Most of the members of the design team have been playing LARPs for at least eight years, some as many as twenty-five. While our experiences within the greater LARP community were mostly positive, we believe that there is a way to do things better.
Sojourners Portal LTD is a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation. In our experience, there are generally two types of LARP running companies: those who struggle to break even, and those who focus mainly on making money. Considering that storytelling and sharing a love of LARPing was more important to us than creating a profit, we decided that if we were going to be like the LARPs struggling to break even, being a not for profit was the best way to go about it. After examining the costs of running an event, it became clear that if we were careful with our planning, we might actually make some money doing it. Still, we don’t want to run games just to make money. We want to tell stories and create a safe place for others to enjoy them.
That decision gave us a lot of freedom to explore ideas on what we could do if we found that we were achieving our goals and still managing to bring in more money than what was needed to keep the game alive. Some of those ideas include: donations to event sites that host LARPs for maintenance and site improvement, a scholarship program for cast members who are furthering their education in the arts, and outreach programs to educate ourselves and other LARP game runners in the best practices for creating a safe environment of inclusivity and mentorship, while removing bigotry and prejudice, to further expand the LARP community.
“I can’t say when LARPing stopped being just a hobby. It has added to my life in ways I never saw coming: An adopted child and two beautiful grandchildren, friends I never would have found without it, stories that will never grow old in my mind because I lived them. That’s why I have to do this… so that others can have those same experiences.”
Dave Menard, CEO of Sojourners Portal LTD.