Here is what happens when charities invest in an unfettered market

[grasswire]

Wall Street, shame.


by Brian Feulner, The Oregonian

The YWCA of Greater Portland, for more than a century a force in the city's community service sector, will cut a large swath of staff and programs in coming months amid turbulent finances.

Executive Director Eric Brown announced a "re-invention" at the nonprofit earlier this month. The changes will include selling the organization's iconic downtown headquarters, eliminating nearly half of staff positions, and shedding unique services for recently incarcerated women, among other things.

Investment losses in the economic downturn, combined with dwindling funds from governmental programs, have made the YWCA's current scope of services untenable in the long term, Brown said. The organization plans to eliminate 47 percent of its services and, combined with a cost-cutting initiative last year, slash 40 percent of its operating costs.

The outcome, Brown said, will be a more-streamlined YWCA, better equipped to impact clients' lives. But the cuts also represent a sharp reduction for an organization that's helped women, children, the destitute and elderly -- in varying capacities and forms -- for more than a century.


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These include the Transitional Opportunities Project, which since 1979 has helped recently incarcerated women transition smoothly into the community through classes and temporary housing. That program, which served nearly 130 women last year, is unique to the area and the only gender-specific program of its kind in the nation, the YWCA's website says.

The YWCA also is foregoing its energy assistance program, which helps the destitute with utility bills. Nearly half of the YWCA's 62-person staff will be let go, Brown estimated. Some may be hired by other nonprofits willing to take on the programs. And the organization will put up for sale its headquarters, 1111 S.W. 10th Ave., though Brown said he hopes the YWCA can stay there in some capacity.

"That is a very painful move for their supporters," said Kay Sohl, a Portland consultant who works with nonprofits on development and planning issues nationwide. "As they let go of that downtown building, I think that they very well might let go of a core part of their identity."

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/12/portland_ywca_plans_significan.html

[OneGrassRoot]

1. K&R. Thanks. n/t