Blog

By: Michael de Yoanna

Category: Business, Panorama, Politics

Posted: September 3, 2009 1:44 PM

Tags: MEDIA, military, ETHICS

New Lows for Focus on the Family

The cuts keep coming at Focus on the Family, the Colorado Springs-based evangelical ministry that's known for its socially conservative politics. In a reorganization announced yesterday, Focus will eliminate another 75 jobs---about eight percent of its workforce---writes the Colorado Springs Gazette, a move that will force the closure of the creative division of the ministry's advertising department and follows the end of Focus' sponsorship of the Love Won Out program, which purports to turn gays and lesbians straight. In 2002, Focus claimed 1,400 employees, but as of one year ago, the organization dropped to 1,155 people. Further cuts this year, including those announced on Wednesday, have swiftly trimmed the workforce to 860. Last November spokesman Gary Schneeberger said Focus was struggling with a $6 million budget shortfall. "The economic reality out there is recession. Faced with that, we looked at everything we could do to improve structure, strategy and efficiency while carrying out the work we're called to do---helping families thrive," Schneeberger told The Denver Post. Last month Focus began a special fundraising campaign, including letters to about 800,000 possible donors. This year's decline in revenues was linked to dwindling donations from large donors that, in the past, wrote checks for hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, Schneeberger says.

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