By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
Reflecting economic hardships for non-profits around the country during this current fiscal crisis, the Anti-Defamation league has downsized many of its branches around the country, and Seattle’s office has not been spared. In December, the ADL’s regional director, Ellen Bovarnick, was laid off, reducing the office to one professional staff person and an administrator.
“These are very tough times for us, and in spite of incredible pressures to close offices, we are going to keep a staff person in the Seattle region,” said Bob Wolfson, the ADL’s director of regional operations.
Both Wolfson and Hilary Bernstein, whose position as the local chapter’s education director will likely evolve into a role that covers the entirety of the organization’s stated mission, said they are committed to operating at or near the capacity they had in the past. The ADL’s mission includes providing anti-bias education in local school districts, consulting on security issues, and monitoring anti-Semitic and other extremist groups.
Where the ADL may once have had staff people in all of its offices doing fundraising, investigating and other agency functions, those jobs are now being repositioned across the country, Wolfson said. Doing so further consolidates some of what the organization had done already, particularly in regard to monitoring extremist groups.
“This is simply an extension of that kind of philosophy,” he said. “We can’t afford to have subject matter experts on everything in every place. And we used to try to do that.”
Bernstein said that she and the local ADL board are working to continue as seamless an operation as possible. That’s particularly important in tough economic times such as these, she said, because it’s often when people look to find scapegoats for their problems.
“We’ve already seen an increase in chatter on talk radio, in blogs on the Internet, where people are looking to blame Jews and to blame other minorities for the country’s problems,” she said.
Bernstein’s job will likely be done from a different location: Wolfson said the ADL is working with its current downtown landlord to get out of its lease, and Pam Schwartz, the Pacific Northwest’s board chair, said one of the board members had offered to donate office space. Wolfson said current technology has made the smaller office model more feasible than in the past.
“With computers and cell phones and Blackberrys it is not as complicated to have somebody, for example, monitor extremism,” he said.
Schwartz agreed.
“With the use of technology, we can do so much,” she said. “We how have an opportunity to move forward and do things — just streamlined.”
Schwartz said she knew the ADL was having money troubles, but did not immediately know how the organization’s national restructuring would manifest itself.
A less-than-stellar financial return from its early November fundraising luncheon with Newsweek editor Jon Meacham showed that money would continue to be tight, and that ultimately meant letting go of executive director Bovarnick, who had held the job since April of last year.
“Unfortunately for Ellen, it was timing,” Schwartz said. “She did a great job, she made a lot of wonderful connections, she did a lot of good work for this region.”
Bernstein, as the sole professional staffer, will likely move into doing some of the fundraising work, as will the board, Schwartz said, and fundraising methods will change as well.
“We’re going to do what we should have been doing, and what we’ve been doing on a smaller level,” she said. “Getting to know our donors…. It’s important to get to know the people who are so generous to our organization, or people who have the potential to be generous.”
Both Wolfson and Bernstein said they would push to continue to provide anti-bias training in the state’s schools as well, though Bernstein’s role will likely change from direct service to providing supervision for other trainers in the state. The ADL’s local chapter currently has several paid professionals to provide the anti-bias training, and Wolfson said many more instructors can be called on from around the country.
The ADL received $325,000 from the state to run anti-bias programs in several school districts in 2007, and with a projected deficit of up to $6 billion in the coming year, it’s a real possibility that allocation may not be renewed.
Given the possibility of that loss of income, “we’ll have to work harder in other avenues to get that money,” Schwartz said. “We’re hoping to get in front of everybody and push for the need for anti-bias education. I can’t be specific, but we’ll have to be creative.”
Despite the financial hardship, organization representatives on both the local and national level said they were committed to keeping the office open.
“Nothing has changed in our commitment to this community and to the work we’re going to do,” Bernstein said. “We are just being careful stewards of our donors’ money and making sure that we have the resources to do the work that’s needed.”