Washington Wilderness Coalition: Misfortune crimps budget, mission

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive

Despite an ambitious agenda for 2003 — hire more people, raise more money, preserve more wildlands — the Washington Wilderness Coalition barely survived the year.

The 24-year-old environmental group suffered a midyear financial crisis, running out of cash as a result of overly optimistic fund-raising predictions, higher expenses, loose accounting and a philanthropic climate that has hit environmental organizations especially hard.

"People think that it's a miracle that we're here," said interim executive director Nalani Askov, who in September took the helm, without pay, after the previous executive director resigned.

Environmentalists said they have seen a broad contraction in giving that has forced some environmental groups to close, merge forces or cut way back. Many such groups — especially smaller ones — have good intentions, but staff and board members aren't savvy financial managers, said Mary Humphries, of Training Resources for the Environmental Community, which advises environmental nonprofits.

In the case of the 9,000-member Washington Wilderness Coalition, income and spending climbed steadily during the boom years and then revenue started slowing while spending didn't.

At the start of 2003, the coalition counted on $285,000 from foundations — as well as $78,500 from major donors — nearly double what it received the year before.

But in the spring, it was turned down for two major grants and by August, donor contributions were just $18,500 for the year.

The money problems were exacerbated by the group's accounting procedures. It hadn't kept a strict separation between its finances and those of two related groups, Askov said. When income sources dried up, the coalition was left short of money it had essentially loaned to one other group.

To survive, it laid off its membership director, several staff members and up to 24 door-to-door recruiters. It shelved its program that used volunteers to map wildlands.

The coalition has since restructured its accounting and narrowed its mission, concentrating on educating people about a proposed 106,000-acre Wild Sky Wilderness northeast of Seattle.

"We had to restructure so that we were focusing on our essential mission, sort of pared down to its bare bones," Askov said.

— Warren Cornwall

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company