Last week I speculated that Focus on the Family was undertaking its stealth ad campaign as an attempt raise money because it had been forced to lay off staff several times over the last few years. Now, it looks like they are about to eliminate even more positions:
Focus on the Family is announcing in an hour that it is eliminating 202 jobs in the coming weeks — 149 through layoffs and 53 by not filling vacant positions. The layoffs are on top of 46 announced in October that will take effect at the beginning of 2009.
The employees were notified today, spokesman Gary Schneeberger said.
“We’ve been trying to take care of our family here first,” he said. “We notified those affected, and they’ll come back this week to find out more about their transition packages.”
The Colorado Springs-based Christian nonprofit’s budget will be reduced from $160 million this year to $138 million in 2009.
The Colorado Independent has more:
Focus on the Family is poised to announce major layoffs to its Colorado Springs-based ministry and media empire today. The cutbacks come just weeks after the group pumped more than half a million dollars into the successful effort to pass a gay-marriage ban in California.
In all, Focus pumped $539,000 in cash and another $83,000 worth of non-monetary support into the measure to overturn a California Supreme Court ruling that allowed gays and lesbians to marry in that state. The group was the seventh-largest donor to the effort in the country. The cash contributions are equal to the salaries of 19 Coloradans earning the 2008 per capita income of $29,133.
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This is the third year that Focus has laid off employees due to budget cuts. In its heyday, the ministry, which relocated to Colorado Springs from Arcadia, Calif., in 1991, employed more than 1,500 people. Many of those employees worked in mailroom and line assembly jobs, processing so much incoming and outgoing correspondences that the U.S. Postal Service gave Focus its own ZIP code.
In September 2005, nearly 80 employees were reassigned or laid off in an effort to trim millions of dollars from its 2006 budget. In addition, 83 open positions were not filled in the layoff, which included eliminating some of the ministry’s programs. At the time, Focus employed 1,342 full-time employees.
“To the extent that we can place them within the ministry, we will try to do that,” said then-spokesman Paul Hetrick. “Most of them will not be able to be placed.”
In September 2007, amid a reported $8 million in budget shortfalls, Focus on the Family laid off another 30 employees; 15 more were reassigned within the company. Most of the layoffs were from Focus’ constituent response services department (i.e. the mailroom).
