I've had friends participating in this, off-and-on, for about as long as it has existed, but this is the first I have ever heard that there was an organization

I've had friends participating in this, off-and-on, for about as long as it has existed, but this is the first I have ever heard that there was an organization associated with the event! The meme seems reasonably self-spreading, in that people who want to write a novel in a month seem likely to also write about the fact that they are trying to do this, so it seems that NaNoWriMo, the experience, might well continue on unchanged even if the organization were to collapse.