Fundraiser of the Year
February 2010Miriam Isserow
development consultant/
former development director
Women Empowered Against Violence
Truth be told, it was this nomination from Lauren Hines, development director at the Council for Court Excellence and a colleague of Miriam Isserow's, that prompted us to go with the "superhero" theme for this year's awards.
Last year was difficult for so many organizations, but few have lived as close to the edge as the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Women Empowered Against Violence. When WEAVE faced the very real possibility of having to close its doors because of the economic downturn, Miriam made for the phone booth and donned her (invisible) cape.
WEAVE provides holistic services including legal support and counseling to survivors of domestic
violence. The organization reaches across communities by employing a bilingual staff and targeting efforts to D.C.'s gay and lesbian population, as well.
Its troubles began in 2008, when the District of Columbia announced it would provide the organization $200,000 less than it had requested. WEAVE drew on savings and made cost-cutting efforts, bracing against the first blows of the economic downturn. It initially cut four staff positions, then cut more; it outsourced accounting, gave up half its main office space and pinched every possible penny.
But a year later, in September 2009, WEAVE found itself in the same situation — only worse — when the District of Columbia announced it would cut its funding to WEAVE's emergency and counseling services — two critical components of its holistic model — as of Oct. 1, 2009. About 75 percent of WEAVE's $2 million budget was supported by federal and local government funding, and the massive reductions hit WEAVE hard and fast. On Sept. 9, WEAVE's board voted to close the organization after 13 years of operations.
The director of development at the time, Miriam was determined to keep WEAVE alive. Along with Interim Executive Director Katherine Morrison, Miriam reached out to both the grant-making community and to long-term donors of the organization. They also reached out to media contacts and got the story out to major media, including NBC Washington Channel 4, NPR, The Washington Post and the local Washington City Paper.
Miriam and Katherine mobilized employees, board members, clients, founders, donors and community supporters to leverage their individual relationships and spread the message even further.
One of the first people they spoke to was one of WEAVE's founders, Lydia Watts, who had served as the organization's first director of development until 2005. Lydia mobilized other early WEAVE supporters, including the organization's first director of development, Stacie Mruk, and they launched a new Web site, www.SaveWeave.org, and established WEAVE on Facebook, Twitter and several blogs. They launched an $85,000 "Save WEAVE" campaign that spread the message to every corner of the D.C. community. They had less than two weeks to meet the $85,000 goal to make up for the money that would have come in from government funding and keep WEAVE's doors open — if only temporarily.
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We here at WEAVE are thrilled to see Miriam get recognition for all her hard work and efforts to help WEAVE overcome the major funding crisis experienced last September. Miriam has continued to be a valued member of our fundraising team, albeit now as a consultant, in line with both her professional goals and WEAVE's fiscal realities. Both the previous Interim Executive Director, Katherine Morrison, and I, as the current Interim Executive Director, have continued to value Miriam's expertise, knowledge, and dedication to WEAVE's mission. I am so glad to have had the opportunity to work with Miriam since I came on board in December, and have relied on her insights and skills as I work to help the organization through this next phase of re-imagining and re-building WEAVE.
WEAVE actually lost all of its administrative and development staff last September as part of preparations to responsibly close its doors in an orderly way in the face of these major funding losses. As news of its planned closure broke, past staff and long-time donors rallied via an on-line donation campaign launched by Lydia Watts, the founder and former executive director of WEAVE, along with several other former staff and long-time supporters. This campaign eventually raised over $125,000 to give the agency a new chance of survival. This amazing campaign--aided by a blitzkrieg Twitter campaign launched by another friend of WEAVE and bolstered by over $50K secured in corporate donations by another supporter who has joined WEAVE's board--will surely become a textbook example of pioneering efforts in on-line fundraising for nonprofits. On the strength of these on-line campaign results, and $300,000 pledged by local area foundations, WEAVE has been able to keep our doors open these past many months.
Along with WEAVE's Board President, Anne McFadden, who graciously stepped into the eye of the storm as Acting Executive Director for two very challenging months last fall, Miriam has been an integral part of helping us "right the ship" to stay afloat. Anne accomplished an amazing amount during her brief two month volunteer stint--we paid off our $100K line of credit, re-negotiated our lease, secured new space at 60% less cost to save $96K a year, and secured over $200,000 in continued funding from foundations and government agencies--all by December! Now Anne and our other dedicated board members are strategically recruiting key donors and leaders to join WEAVE's Board, and are engaged in strategic planning with staff, a well as working to secure additional corporate and individual funding to carry us through this year. Now that's board leadership at its best indeed.
Miriam has worked side-by-side with Katherine, Lydia, Anne, and now me, and has done a wonderful job of following up on the "SaveWEAVE" campaign to thank donors, write grant proposals, and help keep things functioning for the agency. In turn, we are so glad WEAVE could be part of Miriam's long-planned professional evolution by providing her with a base of consulting to enable her have the time to develop new clients and transition to become a development consultant. Ultimately we hope this is a win-win for both WEAVE and Miriam.
As a result of all these efforts by so many people, "Save WEAVE" has truly been a community-wide team effort among WEAVE's founders, staff, board, foundations, government funders, and most importantly our donors. Our base of support is re-engaged, energized, and expanded as everyone worked together to get through this crisis. As a result, WEAVE has an unprecedented opportunity to develop the more diversified funding base that the organization has so long sought since its founding days as the key to sustainability.
Now the challenge is to capitalize on this opportunity, and as is so frequently true for nonprofits, it's not a lack of vision, or a lack of understanding that we need to retain talented staff, but instead limitations in capacity and band-width due to funding constraints that are the challenge. Unfortunately, no matter how heroic nonprofits and their staff and supporters often are, we're always expected to turn water into wine without the benefit of miraculous powers--rather with only severely limited staffing and dedicated volunteers who put in many long hours to do the impossible.
So thank you for your recognition of one WEAVE's many "heroes and heroines", and we hope you will help us recognize all the outstanding staff and volunteers who have done the impossible to get us to where we are today, and who keep doing the impossible to ensure we're here for those we serve tomorrow.
Carol Loftur-Thun
Interim Executive Director
Women Empowered Against Violence, Inc
Wow.
I've never read of a fundraiser continuing to fundraise for an organization, even after being fired, and making the goal she set.
As a former fundraiser for the domestic violence movement, I have to ask, WHY?
Why is this slavish dedication to the cause praised, even when the individual is not valued by the organizaton?
Why would the fundraiser have been let go, if she was the one who was making the money for the organization? Shouldn't they let the Executive Director go instead? Or try to find new board members that would actually do the work of fundraising?
Over and over again I have seen boards that are not willing to fundraise, senior leadership that is not willing to make the ask, and fundraisers who are blamed for the failings of their superiors. It's nice to praise someone for raising money, but wouldn't it be better if the organization had better management, and if she got her job back?
What kind of message does this send to the nonprofits reading this post? It's okay to fire someone who makes her fundraising goals?