I appreciate your clarification of steps you have taken to save WEAVE. And the service you are providing is very important.

It is wonderful that your board is stepping in to help WEAVE succeed.

In the coming months, Lean Development is something you might want to become aware of. In case you don’t know what it is, Lean means a practice of automating your development processes as much as possible, and improving your processes each day, so that you CAN get by on less.

WEAVE actually lost all 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 actually raised over $140,000 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 over $50K secured in corporate donations by another supporter who has now 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 the $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 leave, secured new space at 60% less cost, and secured over $200,000 in continued funding from foundations and government agencies. 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 worked side-by-side with Anne, and did a wonderful job of following up on the “SaveWEAVE” campaign to thank donors, write grant proposals, and keep administration 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 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, “SaveWEAVE” 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 can be, 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

First of all, WEAVE is a thriving organization that, with the economic downturn, faced some very tough choices. I feel that the major difference between WEAVE and many other organizations is that WEAVE chose to go public with its problems. Our Interim Executive Director and our management team (of which I was a member) never wanted to get to the point where we were missing payroll, owing significant funds so we let people know about our problems. The ultimate solution included downsizing, a painful decision for an organization whose services are in even greater demand during the recession.

WEAVE has long known about the need to diversify funding sources and has worked on that since its founding. Sadly, like other social-service agencies dealing with women’s issues, WEAVE never received enough corporate or individual support. My predecessors and I were successful in increasing this support–just not successful enough to see us through bad times.
Even before WEAVE nearly closed, we knew we had to do all the things you mention such as diversifying funding sources and bringing in new, well-connected board members. In fact, WEAVE has been working on this for years. The founders were particularly astute in recognizing these needs. But these efforts take time–time that the organization didn’t have. The organization’s board did really step up to the plate over the past year and has worked hard on recruiting new members as well as donors. I’m sure every one who reads this blog recognizes how much time such moves take.
The outstanding effort to raise money for WEAVE was spearheaded by one of WEAVE’s founders, Lydia Watts who more than any one else wouldn’t allow this essential service (and unique model of holistic services) to be shut down. She deserves the kudos. Much of my work in the crisis days was rallying long time supporters and working with the foundations who committed significant sums which enabled WEAVE to stay open.
Lastly, much as it’s kind of nice (I think) to be recognized for my “slavish devotion,” I’m too much of a feminist to really be slavishly devoted. The reality is more simple: my job–like others at the organization–was cut back significantly. Instead of a Development Director (me), grant writer and communications associate, the organization now has a part time grants person. I was in the fortunate position of being able to fill the grants capacity and some administrative functions for a while because I had long decided that my next professional step would be to work as a consultant. After much downsizing at the organization–sadly mostly the loss of critical administrative and management positions–I was able to stay on, begin my life as a consultant, and still be part of WEAVE’s work which will always be close to my heart. It should be noted that no one at WEAVE thought that any of the downsizing–including the downsizing in the development department–was a good alternative; they just thought it was the only alternative.
While I loved my job, I’m not interested in getting it back now. Thanks for suggesting that, though. I am interested in consulting gigs and promise to be devoted (if not slavishly so) to my clients!
Thanks for the opportunity to be recognized and to clarify.