11/02/09
State and Direction of the Tenants Union - Annual Meeting Report
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State and Direction of the Tenants Union of Washington
Membership Meeting
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Delivered by: John Lang, Executive Director
Tonight I would like to begin a conversation with you about the state and direction of the Tenants Union. First, we’ll take just a minute to re-live the crisis we faced earlier this year. I also want to highlight your response to the crisis, which was the really the turning point. Second, I want to report on the state of the Tenants Union in terms of our programs and our organization. It’s important for you to know where we are at now. Third, I want to provide an overview of our strategic planning efforts and our goal to establish a stronger more sustainable Tenants Union. And, fourth, as a starting point to our strategic planning, I want to briefly introduce three key issues and then ask you to provide your thoughts and insights about the direction of the organization.
Importantly, this is just the beginning of the conversation. We won’t decide anything tonight. But I do hope to start the discussion on some challenging issues.
2009 Crisis
As you know, earlier this year the TU faced some dire circumstances. There were really three main factors:
In 2009 we experienced a budget reduction of $113,000 or 43%, compared with 2008. We faced something of a staffing crisis during the transition of a new executive director, resulting in the departure of four out of five TU staff. We elected a brand new board of directors who were not aware and did not anticipate the crisis until they were immersed in it.
This added up to an extremely difficult situation in which our very viability was in question. And it led us to look at dramatic options including closing the doors and dissolving the organization. Stepping back, however, I think it is also fair to say that there were deeper problems in the basic structure and operations of the Tenants Union. These included an imbalance in the roles and responsibilities of the board and staff, problems in our funding model, and problems in the areas of strategic planning and financial management.
In this sense, our most recent crisis was more of a continuation of the cycle of crises that the TU has experienced over the years.
Turning Point
There was a turning point to the immediate crisis, however. And this is where you come in.
To keep our doors open we set a fundraising goal of $25,000. And in turn, your response was overwhelming. With donations from a few dollars to thousands of dollars, you contributed $55,000 to keep our doors open and really to save the Tenants Union. In my mind, this was an amazing feat and one you should be very proud of. In particular, your support did two things:
First, you brought relative stability to the organization.
Tenant Counseling
On the Program side, the good news is that we were able to keep our tenant counseling program alive. While we closed the doors to our walk in service in August, we continued to provide 10 hours of hotline counseling.
And then two weeks ago, I’m happy to report, we reopened our walk in service after two months of closure. Now our hotline is open 11 hours and our doors are open 9 hours each week (sometimes overlapping times). In total, this year we have provided tenant counseling to 1200 tenants, with 90% of our calls serving low income tenants. These figures are very comparable to past years.
In addition, we’ve held nine tenant workshops so far this year, including three in the past month. These have served over 200 tenants including low income residents and individuals who are new to the country. And we have two more workshops planned through the end of the years.
Community organizing and advocacy is more of a mixed story:
We still work with partner orgs to address housing problems: Solid Ground. Low Income Housing Alliance. Columbia Legal Services. NW Justice Project. TU members, such as the Benson East residents, continue to advocacy for tenant rights on local and national levels. And in June the TU participated in outreach to our Congressional delegation in support of the National Housing Trust Fund
At the same time, we currently don’t have dedicated staff to take on any advocacy campaign. Accordingly, while there are plenty of opportunities, we do not have the resources to engage in any sustained organizing and advocacy efforts at this point.
Organization
The organizational side is also a mixture of good and less than good news. As you know, the foundation of the TU is our membership. However, as reported earlier we currently have 351 members, which is down from a high of 600 in recent years. Our staffing is also down to 1.5 FTE, compared with 4.5 FTE at the beginning of the year: to the degree that we are able, this needs to cover tenant programs, member services, fundraising, financial management and administration as well as planning and efforts to rebuild the organization. As you know, our board of directions membership is currently at nine members. While this is a good starting figure, we need to continue to expand the board, with a focus on both low income tenant representation and specific expertise in finances, fundraising, communications, and HR, and an emphasis on governance, fundraising and strategic planning responsibilities.
Most importantly, our financial situation is relatively stable. With our current cash balance and receivables through pledges and our contract with King County for tenant counseling, we have funds to operate at our current level for many months into 2010. At the same time, we are engaging public partners including King County and the WA Department of Commerce around program funding for 2010. We are also talking with key foundation about support at three levels: ongoing operations; strategic planning and plan implementation.
And most importantly, we will continue to engage you as members of the Tenants Union. You can expect a year-end holiday appeal letter soon, as well as an “ask” for your support tonight.
In sum, on the state of the Tenants Union, I think we have some breathing room, some stability, some very important continued successes in programs, and also a great deal of work left to do.
Strategic Planning Process
Which brings us to the second significance of our turning point. This relative stability also allows us to start the process of rebuilding the organization. This is what I want to talk about tonight.
Tonight, we begin a strategic planning process and a conversation about the future of the Tenants Union. Our goal is to establish the Tenants Union as a strong and sustainable voice for tenant rights. And our goal is to build an organization that moves past a cycle of crisis.
Approach
In support of our rebuilding process: Our approach is not to jump back into everything we did in the same way we did it before. Instead, our approach is to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each part of our organization: programs, membership model, funding model, and organizational structure. Based on this, we need to make very intentional decisions about what kind of Tenants Union we wish to become. And we need to be open to a Tenants Union that is very different in scope, scale or structure than the one we had in recent or distant years. There will be very difficult questions to ask. Especially because they may produce answers we don’t want to hear. At the same time, I think it’s helpful to remember that we say we are a radical organization dedicated to fundamental change. Accordingly, we need to be willing to ask difficult questions about ourselves and be open to fundamental change within the Tenants Union.
The Questions
I would like to begin with the three most fundamental questions in front of us. And then take 15 to 20 minutes to talk about each of them. Remember, we won’t solve anything tonight. Instead, hopefully there will be healthy debate and even disagreement in the room.
1. Among our current array of programs – tenant counseling, community organizing and advocacy – what should we focus on as the long term priority of the Tenants Union?
2. Should the TU be a membership organization, and if so, what should this structure look like?
3. Should the Tenants Union remain an independent organization, should we seek partnerships and collaborations to address programmatic and organizational needs, or should we explore a merger with a like minded organization?
Before you share your thoughts on each, I would like to suggest some basic ideas that you may or may not agree with. Consider them food for thought.
Program Question
Let’s start with the first question: Among our current array of programs – tenant counseling, community organizing and advocacy – what should we focus on as the long term priority of the Tenants Union?
Here are some basic propositions:
Community organizing and advocacy: *Community organizing is at the heart of the Tenants Union
*There is a tremendous need for community organization
*And, the Tenants Union is the only organization that takes on community organizing and consistently takes strong political positions on tenant issues.
*Yet our belief is that this is financially unsustainable; that means that we believe public funds, membership dues, foundation support and other private funding cannot sustain our community organizing as a stand alone program or business model.
*Thus, we focus on other programs in part to subsidize our primary focus of community organizing.
Tenant Counseling: hotline and walk in services
*Tenant counseling is both an end and a means.
*It is an end in that it is essential to provide information on tenant rights, especially to low income tenants.
*It is a means in that it is the frontline, where we identify patterns of injustice and opportunities for community organizing
*And, it is a means in that tenant counseling is a better way to attract public funds; which in turn helps to subsidize our community organizing
*At the same time, tenant counseling is very expensive to provide, involving a great deal of money and infrastructure around staffing, volunteers and volunteer training/management, phone and computer systems, and office space.
*There are other organizations who offer tenants counseling services.
*And there are other organizations who may have more extensive infrastructure and capacity to support counseling services
*At the same time, given our name and reputation, many tenants recognize the Tenants Union as the authoritative source of information, even if there are other tenant counseling services in the area.
20 MINUTE DISCUSSION
Membership Question
Should the TU be a membership organization, and if so, what should this structure look like?
Propositions *As a membership organization, especially where our core constituency is low income tenants, the TU is the only organization that can speak with authority from the perspective of this audience.
*Membership dues only generates about 10% to 15% of our income each year
*And it can be very expensive to be a well-organized membership organization.
*Everything from member development and renewal, to communication, to governance, all require significant capacity and financial resources.
*Or, if we put limited resources behind our membership we have limited success in member growth, or even see a decline in membership.
*And we can’t produce what’s really important, which is member mobilization.
*One opportunity is to focus on other, more affluent audiences to increase our member donations.
*This may help to solve a financial problem, but it also risks diluting the voice of our core constituency.
*And as food for thought, it may be much less expensive to stop focusing on the TU as a membership organization.
*But if we weren’t a membership organization, especially one that directly represents low income tenants, we would just be another nonprofit without a clear connection to this constituency. And tenants might lose their primary voice on questions of housing justice.
20 MINUTE DISCUSSION
Independence/Merger Question
Should the Tenants Union remain an independent organization, should we seek partnerships and collaborations to address programmatic and organizational needs, or should we explore a merger with a like minded organization?
Remaining independent *Means continued self-determination.
*It means the ability to take strong positions on issues that other organizations may not be willing to take.
*But, the downside is the organizational weight this places on the TU to be self-sufficient in financial management and accounting, fundraising, member services, HR and other administrative and overhead costs.
*We either do them well at greater organizational expense, putting more pressure on fundraising and limited resources;
*Or do them not so well, at the risk of continued instability and another organizational crisis.
Merger *Merger may compromise our independence and ability to take on certain issues with complete freedom.
*But a merger might provide much greater stability and access to infrastructure such as financial management, HR, fundraising.
*This would allow us to focus on our program work whether its tenant counseling, community organizing or advocacy, rather than spending significant time and energy on administrative issues.
Middle Ground – Partnership/Collaboration *Allow the TU to remain independent, while “purchasing” office space and administrative functions from a like minded organization.
*Allow the TU to focus on one area, such as community organizing, while partnering with another organization to provide other services such as tenant counseling.
20 MINUTE DISCUSSION
Conclusion
Thank you for your strong commitment and many contributions to the Tenants Union, especially during one of our most difficult periods. I also want to thank you for your contributions to our discussion tonight. As you can see, we have some work to do before we come up with any clear answers. However, moving forward I want to ask you to do three things.
First, as I mentioned earlier it seems that some people think we are dead. Please spread the word that we are not dead, and in fact we are very much alive and working to be a much stronger and sustainable organization.
Second, please engage those you know around these questions. If you had strong views on some of these issues, you can be certain that there are many other strong and creative ideas that could contribute to our thinking. Please ask others what they think.
And third, as our strategic planning continues, I would like to see more and more people involved. Tonight you can sign up to participate in our planning around community organizing, tenant counseling, membership structure and organizational structure. And please get others involved too. It would be nice to see 10-fold members and supporters at future meetings as we start to work through the difficult decisions ahead. And please ask others to contact me directly if they would like to get involved.
Thank you.