2022-2026 | HNS-land-updates

What Happened to the HNS Land?

After reviewing the 2018 Transfer Agreements, communications surrounding the property transfer, and the 2023 transaction with legal counsel and professional advisors, I believe there are serious unanswered questions that should be addressed before Human Nature School dissolves.

At the heart of this are two issues:

1. The donor's contractual Right of Reversion does not appear to have been triggered. The 2018 transfer agreement allowed the donor to seek return of the property under specific circumstances. According to the legal review I obtained, those circumstances included if HNS had dissolved. Or if it had tried to sell the land without consent. Neither of those circumstances had occurred.

This means the land does not appear to have returned to the donor because HNS was contractually required to give it back.

Rather, the Board appears to have voluntarily transferred HNS's largest asset to the donor.

2. HNS's contractual right to reimbursement appears unresolved.

The 2018 agreement states that if the property returned to the donor, HNS was entitled to reimbursement for qualifying improvements, with the amount determined through an agreed-upon third-party appraisal.

I have found no evidence that this appraisal occurred, nor have I seen a full accounting of HNS's investments.

These two issues alone warrant independent review.

How Did We Get Here?

2022, Matt and I Step Out of Leadership

In 2022, Matt and I agreed to step out of our Co-Executive Director roles at the request of the Board President and the donor.

Our transition agreements contemplated that we would remain involved as Board members while focusing on completing work underway on the HNS land. Instead, throughout much of 2022 we were excluded from most board meetings, communications, and strategic discussions without explanation. This broke our transition agreements, our bylaws and state non-profit rules. We asked for clarity in writing. We offered we could be voted off if that's what the board wanted. We simply requested clarity. But we did not even receive a response.

This matters because it removed twelve years of institutional knowledge, and two people deeply committed to protecting the land and the site plan, from Board deliberations immediately before HNS's largest asset was transferred. Our fellow board members from 2022 have said they were also confused about why Matt and I were being excluded. It remains unclear who advised the Board, not to follow these agreements, and the organizations bylaws.

2023: The Donor Proposes Taking the Land Back

As our executive roles were ending, the donor began discussing the idea of taking ownership of the property back.

In one communication, he proposed:

“that we use the right of reversion to bring [the land] back into my keeping, for now.”

(Again, the right of reversion was conditional, and not designed as a tool the donor could use, at will, to revert the land back, whenever.)

At the same time, he described a future in which HNS and its larger vision would continue on the property:

“I would love to see HNS programs happening at the [land] by the end of next year.” And , “I have always wanted there to be a solid, long-lasting home for the essential mission and vision of HNS to thrive.”

Like many others, I was led to believe that HNS would retain a meaningful and lasting place on the land and that the larger vision for the property would continue. I trusted the donor and the Board to exercise their duties of care, due diligence, and financial stewardship to ensure that these intentions were properly documented and that any subsequent actions remained consistent with the protections established by the 2018 transfer agreements.

We now know, however, that the 2018 transfer agreements were not followed when the property was reconveyed, and that no new agreements were put in place to replace the protections those agreements provided. In effect, a substantial community asset—together with years of organizational investment, labor, improvements, and collective effort—was transferred away from HNS without the contractual protections or safeguards that had previously governed the property.

The result was that an asset intended to support HNS’s charitable mission and a larger community vision was ultimately placed in the hands of an individual, creating a significant private benefit and leaving the community’s investment and HNS’s long-term interests largely unprotected.

2023: The Board Transfers the Property

The donor requested that the property be returned to him.

In November 2023, the Board deeded the approximately 140-acre property back to the donor for $1. HNS reportedly received a donation of approximately $70,000 in connection with the transfer.

The donor wrote: “I would not be willing to pay back the equivalent of all that has been put in. Probably not even close.”

That statement is significant because the 2018 transfer agreement did not make reimbursement dependent upon what the donor was willing or able to pay. It established an appraisal process for determining the value of qualifying improvements. And yet the board ultimately settled on an associated donation amount that was not reflective of our investments. They settled on an associated donation amount that was "what the donor could afford."

The broader HNS community was not consulted about the proposed transfer or informed of its terms beforehand. Matt and I were included in one email containing a partial accounting of HNS's investment in the property. We supported it as a good first step, but received no further information.

Had we been told that there would be no protections for HNS and that the 2018 transfer agreements were being disregarded, we certainly would have objected strongly at the time. But that's not what we were led to believe.

The transfer was announced to the community only after it had occurred, as a part of HNS's 2023 Winter Solstice newsletter, several sections deep, without a detailed explanation of the terms of the transaction or how it benefited HNS.

I am not aware of any other updates being provided in the last 3 years. Until this April, when the donor announced his intention to sell the property.

What Did the Board Understand?

It is my personal opinion, after speaking with many of the 2023 board members, that they were genuinely concerned at the time and that most members were likely doing what they thought was best at the time. Many members were newer, meetings were largely on zoom, it appeared to be a confusing time for many.

Here is some of what I have heard from the 2023 Board Members:

Many of the 2023 Board members have told us they feared HNS might become insolvent and believed returning the property was necessary to secure financial support from the donor, to keep the organization operating.

My own perspective is quite different:

First, publicly available records do not appear to show that HNS was close to insolvency. If the Board believed it was, there were other options available to remedy the concern:

Such as selling the $12,000 portable sawmill (which was instead given to the donor.)
Making a clear emergency appeal to the community, (such as, "we need X amount of money to make it through X amount of time, or we may be facing insolvency.")
Or simply asking the finance committee for help, who served HNS for many years and are professional accountants.
Matt and I also remained available. We had expressly stated in our transition agreements that we hoped to remain involved and had readily offered our support.

Second, even if HNS had become insolvent as feared, the 2018 agreements contemplated that the right of reversion could be triggered by the dissolution of HNS—not simply by a concern that HNS might become insolvent.

That is the central concern here. The dissolution process contemplated by the 2018 agreements provided a mechanism for HNS's investments to be recognized and reimbursed while also protecting the underlying charitable value created through those investments. Rather than allowing those community assets and improvements to ultimately benefit a private individual, the process was designed to preserve their value for HNS's charitable mission or for another organization serving a similar charitable purpose.

What appears to have occurred in 2023 bypassed that process, resulting instead in the return of the property and its improvements to the donor personally.

It also appears there may have been a belief that owning a valuable, debt-free, tax-exempt property was itself a liability, or that the site plan was not viable. But the site plan was specifically designed to generate revenue and become financially self-sustaining. For instance:

The planned residential cluster could have sold residential lots at fair market value if needed, which would have paid for the most crucial expenses in the site plan, such as the commercial access.
The lodge was designed to include rental units, which could have provided affordable housing for staff AND paid the mortgage for the lodge at the same time.

This raises important questions: Where did these understandings come from? Who was advising the Board? How is it that decisions were made that appear to disregard the history of the property and the organization, binding contractual agreements, and the extensive planning behind improving the property such that the HNS community visions were deemed to no longer be viable?

A Question of Independence

The donor was deeply involved with HNS, is considered a co-founder, major donor, was on the land committee and the organizational re-structure committee. He supported Matt and me stepping away from leadership in 2022, proposed returning the land to his ownership in 2023, set his own terms for the agreement and communicated what he was willing to pay HNS.

Taken together, these circumstances raise legitimate questions about potential conflicts of interest, the independence of the Board's decision-making, private benefit, and whether HNS's charitable interests were adequately protected.

Those questions are even more important now.

The donor has announced his intention to sell the property, reportedly worth approximately $1.4 million, rather than continue the vision he represented at the time of the transfer.

The Financial Picture

Consider the overall sequence:

2018: The property was given as a tax deductible, charitable donation and was valued at approximately $521.575.

2018–2023: During this time the property values in Leelanau benefited from a 76% increase. The HNS community invested an estimated $300,000 in improvements and development, in addition to substantial volunteer labor during this time. This would bring the estimated, value to approximately 1.2 million by the end of 2023, when the land was deeded back.

2023: HNS transferred the property back to the donor for $1, and reportedly received approximately $70,000 in a tax deductible, charitable donation.

Today: The property is reportedly worth approximately $1.4 million and the donor announced his decision to sell it.

It appears that approximately 590K in tax deductible donations may have been claimed as part of these property-related decisions.
Roughly 50K in property taxes did not have to be paid while HNS was the owner of the property.
During the relevant time periods, the property gained roughly $810,000 in value from increased equity and improvements made by the HNS Community.

This pattern is very concerning to me. And does not appear to be in the best interest of HNS and the community that invested in it.

What We Are Asking the Community Now

Since others and I began raising these concerns, the Board has not agreed to open the relevant records for our review or accept our offers to help review what happened. I have also offered to join the board and have volunteered to support programs and admin operations.

Instead of accepting support, on July 28, 2026, the Board voted to begin dissolving Human Nature School.

I believe we need to widen the circle before that happens. Human Nature School belongs to a much larger community of families, staff, volunteers, donors, board members, educators, community partners, and supporters who invested years of their lives and substantial charitable resources into its mission.

If any of these matters remain close to heart, I encourage you to share your voice and complete our feedback form on the homepage and/or write to the board of directors (info@humannautreschool.org).

I believe we all deserve transparency, clarity and the opportunity to resolve these issues, in alignment with the greatest good of all and in the best interest of the community and our future generations.