For Matt Tannenbaum’s bookstore in Lenox, Massachusetts – simply known as The Bookstore – the Covid-19 pandemic was transformational, but not in the way you might think. When the lockdowns were imposed, business quickly came to a near standstill, with Tannenbaum’s weekly sales amounting to what a good day might have been pre-Covid. The situation grew dire, and then he decided to try raising money through the popular donation platform GoFundMe. Very suddenly, everything changed.
Tannenbaum’s GoFundMe didn’t just meet its target – staggeringly, it actually doubled its $60,000 goal in just two days of operations, instantly changing The Bookstore from a business that had long operated in the red to one that was flush with cash reserves. Speaking on the remarkable upwelling of community support, Tannanbaum told me, “I knew it was there, because people had been telling me for years how much they cared about the store. It was just delight squared.”
