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Q: How has the club changed over the years?

A: You know, in the beginning it was an accident. Now it’s by design. I think it’s grown up the way nonprofits have grown up over the years. Had I not had the experience that I had in New York, of creating programs for very poor people and homeless people, I don’t know that I would’ve had the qualifications to run a nonprofit organization. And I think it was just serendipitous for me that after 20 years of that kind of experience, the club needed that kind of guidance. If it hadn’t become a nonprofit, well, I don’t think it would’ve survived, because I think after [former owners] the Donlins retired, it was a tired institution, because it needed more money, it needed more community support. The Donlins were an incredible couple, I mean, they were very, very dynamic; they did incredible jobs in keeping the light on, but they weren’t making any money at it. That the Donlins did what they did regardless of the money problems was just magnificent, because there would’ve been nothing [for me] to come back to. I mean, I would’ve stayed in the anti-hunger world and I would’ve continued doing that kind of stuff here. But the music would not have been the core of my next life.

So coming back, it was an accident that I came back at a time when Rounder Records and a few people in Cambridge had said, you know, this place is absolutely worth salvaging; we’ve got to find a way to make it work. For the first three or four years that I was back, it was really keeping the doors open and encouraging a lot of community people to become board members and volunteers, and make it more of a community. It takes time to rebuild a place, and to this day, I have a staff that is crazy-dedicated. I mean that in a most loving way: they’re crazy-dedicated. They’ve found home.

Q: Tell me about Cutting Edge of the Campfire, which will be held over Memorial Day weekend.

A: [Manager Matt Smith] has put together a very tasty weekend of music that people really have responded to. He came up with that idea by himself. I think Labor Day coming up will be our fifth year [of Cutting Edge]. There are hundreds of artists, and he spends an awful lot of time trying to bring it down to 100. It’s become like a little beacon in the music world, and we’re very proud of his success with that.

Q: Tell me about Passim’s Music School.

A: We would just be dummies if we didn’t have a music school. We had people for years and years say, "If you ever want me to teach something ..." Rob Laurens, who’s the co-chair of our board, is the musician who really spearheaded the Music School, and worked on the curriculum and worked on the vision of it, and what kind of school we would be. [At the club], if there’s no bad seat in the house and there’s no musician who’s ever booed, there’s also no student who’s ever made to feel like they can’t accomplish. It’s about feeling what music means to you, and not about whether you can pass a test at the end of a semester. So if we attract people who are 75 and want to learn the fiddle, or we attract 17-year-olds who are just stepping into folk music and are unsure about that community and whether they’re welcome, the answer is yes.

Q: What is Passim’s Archive Project?

A: It’s just really at level one because we don’t have the space or the storage for an archive project, but it’s very important as we look at getting more space, that we are able to catalogue and preserve and teach, to anyone who wants it — if you want to do your senior paper on folk music, you can come to us; there’ll be a folklorist on staff two days a week, and there’ll be real ways to do this. You know, you do as many things as you have time for that are legitimate, that you look back at the mission and say, this is right. And when it’s right, the community knows it, and the board then takes it and says, how can we support it?

So all this leads you to understand why our 47th [year] is really important to me, and why it’s such a celebration for an organization that has depended on the public, and has depended on the kindness of strangers to say you’re legitimate, you still matter, you give a lot to the community, and you’re a gem. You’re a little gem. There are people who would do anything to play at the club, to have it on their résumé. There are people who remember it as a very nurturing place when they were really young and nervous. There are people who wish they could play but can’t get onto the roster because we do 400 shows a year and there are four million artists.

Q: What are your goals for Passim?

A: I think we’ve reached a place in the organization where we can take some more steps forward with more community support — but the key to the puzzle for me has always been how to have people respect the organization, the kind of music that we produce, in the same way that people respect and support a local ballet, a local string orchestra, a local jazz organization. That folk music’s place is at that table, that it is real music with real value. And that it’s just as important, but it’s not the moneymaker that Britney Spears is. But it obviously attracts an awful lot of people who find a sense of validation.

[So we’ve put an] umbrella over the club, which is the Passim Folk Music and Cultural Center — yeah, it’s a lot of work, but I think it actually reflects who we are and where we’re headed. If we had a center that was open seven days a week, not only seven nights a week, and we were teaching music lessons after school to all ages; if we were out in the public-school system; if we had Culture for Kids as an after-school program five days a week; if we had an Archive Project and a storefront where we had a gallery — I mean, those are the things that make us a whole picture. At the same time, to have the community say, yeah, it’s not just that funny little place in the basement where people who can’t make it in the pop world play. It has richness, it has legs, it has longevity, it has history. So are they lofty goals? I don’t think so. I think that the place has been around for a real good reason, and that each generation that has nurtured it has done something incredibly important without maybe even knowing that. It’s the community’s space.

Cutting Edge of the Campfire will be held at Club Passim, in Cambridge, from May 28 through 31. For a complete schedule, visit www.clubpassim.org, or call (617) 492-5300. Tamara Wieder can be reached at twieder[a]phx.com