Bailout for Focus on the Family?
James Dobson’s Focus on the Family is going to be begging for a bailout soon, and just announced the layoffs of 20% of their work force. Who is in favor of bailing them out? What would your conditions be? Come on, folks, the citizens of Colorado Springs need some help here when its major industry of hate starts tanking.
Oh Noes! Focus on the Family is looking at laying off workers after making the poor business decision to put hundreds of thousands of dollars behind anti-gay measures in a few states. Several families in the Colorado Springs area are now going to have trouble making ends meet. Oh Noes! From The Colorado Independent:
UPDATE: Focus on the Family announced this afternoon that 202 jobs will be cut companywide — an estimated 20 percent of its workforce. Initial reports bring the total number of remaining employees to around 950.
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.
Critics are holding up the layoffs, which come just two months after the organization’s last round of dismissals, as a sad commentary on the true priorities of the ministry.
The Colorado Springs Gazette has a more balanced view here of the largest layoff of employees ever at this major employer in the Colorado Springs area. Clearly they don’t have a good handle on the business side of their organization. Here’s the scoop from the Colorado Springs Gazzette, with the facts up-to-date:
Because of a weak economy and cash-strapped donors, Focus on the Family said it is eliminating 202 jobs, the deepest cuts in the 32-year history of the Colorado Springs-based Christian nonprofit. The ministry laid off 149 workers, and cut another 53 vacant positions.
The cuts announced Monday slash Focus’ local workforce by nearly 18 percent - from about 1,150 to 950. Twenty percent of the cuts are in management.
The layoffs come just weeks after Focus announced it was outsourcing 46 jobs from its distribution department. Focus also laid off 30 workers and reassigned 15 more in September 2007.
The organization also cut its the budget from $160 million in fiscal 2008 to $138 million for fiscal 2009 in anticipation of tough times.
I say we bail them out on two conditions. First, management has to resign and walk the country in a sackcloth suit. Second, the mission of the organization has to modernize and come out in favor of gays in the military, gay adoption, gay marriage, and Barbra Streisand music. On these conditions I would vote in favor of a bailout of Focus on the Family.
