Walk into Affirmations in Ferndale today and it's easy to find it bustling with community members. Simply standing in the lobby as a meeting finishes up or as the building begins to fill with people for an event that can be as varied as an art opening or health fair, it's clear that the LGBTQ community center is once again functioning as it should. That becomes surprising, however, when one considers the fact that less than a year ago last November Affirmations was on the verge of shutting down entirely. Today, Mike Flores is the nonprofit's board president. He took on that role initially in 2018 when it became clear that the center was losing money and resources far faster than it was able to replenish them. He said that at that critical stage there were only three goals.
"[One was to] restructure to maintain the center open and provide the most critical services. Number two was basically to increase funding, and number three was to get stable leadership," Flores said.
By the time Affirmations made it into the first quarter of 2019, the center was operating on limited hours, beginning the process of rebuilding its longstanding donor base via an extended community appeal and hosting regular community chats to weigh in on what the Southeast Michigan community wanted to see changed going forward with its 30-year-old landmark. Perhaps most importantly, they emphasized the qualities they wanted in their next executive director as leadership was still undefined.
"They wanted somebody who had strong ties to Michigan and they wanted somebody who was going to be committed long-term. So that's exactly what we did when we did [our] search," Flores said. "We finally selected Dave Garcia, we knew that he had very strong ties to Affirmations because of his previous role at Affirmations, and we also came to a commitment to each other that this was going to be a long-term role for him. … So we signed an agreement where we secured leadership stability for the next couple of years and what that did was allow us to focus on a strategy that we can begin to develop between the board, the executive director, staff and the community that we will be able to execute over the long-term."
Already having served in this role once before, Dave Garcia returned from a stint at the Los Angeles LGBT Center and began his new term on May 1. However, before he set to work officially he re-introduced himself to the community with remarks at the 2019 Spring Bash, Affirmations' annual black-tie fundraiser. Now, nearing the Fall Fling on Oct. 26, a more casual fundraising event held inside the building that invites guests to mingle with its staff and regulars, and almost a year since the center first dipped into crisis, it was the perfect opportunity to take stock of progress made. Between The Lines met with Garcia and Affirmations' current staff to get a sense of achievements, current projects and future goals.
Financial Prospects
Then and Now
When asked what his biggest surprise was returning to the organization after a five-year period away, Garcia's answer was quick: "The lack of grants."
"I agreed to come back when I looked at the numbers, what we had in the bank, and believed that that would give me enough runway to turn things around," Garcia said. "I did not expect that we would be so anemic when it came to the grants."
However, it might be argued that institutional knowledge was Garcia's secret weapon.
"Many of our grant partners have been with us for a decade. And so, I had already been working closely with them for years, so unlike somebody new that they might have recruited from New York or something, I knew who to go talk to," Garcia said. "So it was easier in a way to be the one to sit down in front of them and say, 'Look, I'm back, I'm not going anywhere, I signed a contract. I know you care about Affirmations, you've invested so much. You can't stop now.' And without exception, we are batting a thousand on grants [we've asked for]."
Garcia said that realistically, that trend won't be able to continue, but he's heartened by the fact that the center has raised $210,000 since he started in May and he's eager to raise more. That's in part because he's been focused on rekindling and fostering relationships with groups who have historically donated to the center and are invested in its success, too.
John Joanette is a former volunteer and Affirmations' newly hired development director. Having worked as both an executive director and consultant for nonprofits in the past, he said he's seen a trend of those community partners reacting well to that approach.
"'We want to be a part of the solution,' said the good folks at The Community Foundation, which run our Hope Fund grant that we haven't been a recipient of since Dave was here last time. Basically, the program manager said, 'We're willing to help open doors, we want you to be successful.' And I think it was just [that at] different times different leadership didn't really take advantage of the goodwill that people had for this place that I think we're harvesting now."
The Hope Fund endowment is a $625,000 fund that doesn't get touched unless Affirmations gets at least $33,000 a year in "investments that come back," Joanette said.
To compare numbers between the crisis and today, at the end of 2018 Garcia said Affirmations had $45,000 in the bank that was mostly pulled from the center's reserve fund to keep doors open. That compared to the $533,000 that makes up the center's 2019 budget in revenue, gives Garcia hope for "continued, slow and steady growth."
"We are in a much stronger financial position right now, but now we need a 2020 budget. We need to get back on a normal [path]. Our 2020 budget should be approved by December for the next following year and we will do that. John and I and really the whole staff have worked on that budget, it will be presented to the finance committee in the next couple of weeks. The Finance Committee will recommend it to the Executive Committee who will then recommend it to the full board for a vote in December," Garcia said. "That budget will be approximately $750,000 in revenue for 2020. So, we are going from basically zero, to $533,000 at the end of this year, to $750,000 at the end of next year."
In addition, Affirmations' cash position will be $150,000 in its checking account by the end of this year, another $133,000 in a separate account restricted for building maintenance issues only and $65,000 in a Fidelity investment account.
Current Projects and Long-Term Goals
As critical as revitalizing reliable revenue sources has been for the center's success, Garcia made sure to emphasize that Affirmations' functionality has always rested on its volunteer base.
"For as important as the finance piece was, the reality was our volunteer base was hurting. And Ian Unger and Kyle Taylor, just in the last three months, have recruited almost 100 new volunteers. And we launched a lead volunteer program, which has about 10 volunteers, and they're specially trained to open and close the building, to have a key to the building and in large part, because of them. And because of the work they're doing with volunteers, that's one of the biggest reasons we've been able to expand the hours Monday through Saturday 10 to 10," Garcia said. "Because when I got here they weren't even open on Mondays and they were closing at 8."
Unger serves as Affirmations' youth and education manager and Taylor is the Center's development and community relations manager. Both were staff members during Affirmations' financial crisis and have since changed their roles, gearing their efforts toward volunteer retention and skills-building among LGBTQ youth.
"Since evolving into my new role that includes being in charge of the volunteer corps, but basically working to improve that. So that is maintaining the trainings, constantly updating them when that needs to be, making sure that we're out at these community events, telling people about the volunteer opportunities," Taylor said. "Making sure we're visible in the community in actually recruiting volunteers who will come back."
At the same time, Unger has been working within the center to develop youth programming, especially related to giving real-world work experience to Southeast Michigan LGBTQ youth. Before restructuring happened, Unger focused on two separate curriculum-based programs: Youth Leadership and Youth Workforce.
"They both covered very similar topics but at different paces, so during the restructuring I actually ended up combining them a lot because of budget and finance and things, but it actually started to grow the program because they were learning both self-advocacy and workforce development skills," Unger said. "And as we looked at it, they were working at the Recess Café downstairs a couple days a week selling concessions, but they weren't getting a whole lot of hands-on experience because it wasn't open all the time so people didn't know to come in. So, we looked at that and started thinking about how they could better get those skills, which is now moving them into the more volunteer base for the hands-on skills where they are at the community resource desk."
Since Affirmations' youth programs allow for young people aged 13 to 22 to participate, Unger has also been working to develop summer internships with fulltime staff at the Center for the especially dedicated and "outstanding" youth who have shown a passion for their work. Available internships provide real-world experience with existing Affirmations staff, so youth can get experience in fields like programming, development, facilities, marketing and communications.
"And not only that, they have the staff's supervisor who can be a reference for them, who can write a letter of recommendation for them. We can do mock interviews for them. We're already talking to folks like Quicken Loans and Flagstar Bank that are willing to give internships to them when they're done with the program," Garcia said.
And beyond current programming changes, Garcia said he's excited to debut the Affirmations Angels or the Aff-Angels. He said that this would be a specially trained volunteer group dedicated to aiding elderly members of the Affirmations community.
"Our largest group that meets here right now is the Senior Koffee Klatch, and our senior community is growing exponentially and getting older and they need help. And while Los Angeles had 200 affordable housing apartments and 15,000 people in their senior program, just because we can't go to that scale doesn't mean we can't help our seniors," he said. "[They] would help sick people with small chores like laundry and groceries and picking up medication and taking them to the doctors and light food prep and things like that. Only this would be trained volunteers, paid stipend volunteers."
Currently, SAGE Metro Detroit has agreed to aid in the training of the volunteers alongside American Indian Health and Family Services. This dual method would allow the volunteers to be well-versed in crisis training so that not only could LGBTQ seniors be helped, but Affirmations' crisis line be reopened.
"Affirmations, for many, many years had a helpline. I understand that people with good intentions [decided to remove it] but I don't think it should have gone away. I think it should evolve to the sign of the times," Garcia said. "So, those volunteers will also be trained, so if a call comes in to an Aff-Angels call to be set up with a chore for a senior like picking up groceries. But if a crisis call comes in, they'll also be able to take that call."
As of right now, Garcia said that funding is being allocated toward that new volunteer branch and he hopes to debut it as early as January of 2020.
Solidifying Institutional Memory
Though for right now Affirmations seems to be demonstrating forward progress, it has suffered in the past from a lack of institutional memory. When asked what processes are being put in place to guarantee Affirmations can continue to thrive long after the current staff and board members have left their positions, Joanette said it's all about implementing effective systems and methods, whether old or new, and developing processes of maintaining them.
"What we're all trying to work for in our own realms is to have that longevity in those systems in place," he said.
He gave an example of the donor database as something being worked on to ensure its effectivity for years to come.
"What Kyle's doing with me and Dave is to make sure that for our top 100 prospects, plus a little bit of a deeper dive, we have a history of contacts we made. We know where we left off with our major donors, what the next touchpoint is, that detail stuff that hasn't been done in a while, and that's something that moves forward regardless of the personnel. It's that living, breathing document and system that moves forward that helps us to not be in the position ever again," Joanette said. "And that takes time to do that, but we're getting there. And it has already been proven that I can't remember every last detail about a donor, but collectively, because we've been capturing this stuff, we've been able to do a much more thorough job."
Beyond those efforts, former staff and volunteers like Cass Varner and Kat LaTosch have been reinstated in various roles to ensure that the center follows its former course. But perhaps getting back to the origins of the Fall Fling is the first Center-wide step to getting back some of Affirmations' old traditions. The upcoming Oct. 26 Wizard of Wine event for which admission costs only two bottles of wine might sound like a new event, but Garcia said "it's actually an old thing" to encourage people to discover the new center.
"I started the Fall Fling my last time here and it was really in response to the Spring Bash, which can be expensive for people. So, to have another event that people could afford, no matter who you are, we started the Fall Fling," Garcia said. "And last year we sold tickets, but that kind of gets away from the spirit of why we started it in the first place for anybody to come. And you don't have to bring two bottles of wine if you're in recovery, you can bring two bottles of grape juice or whatever you want. That's Oct. 26. It's going to be packed; it's going to be a huge party. We'll have entertainment and food and, of course, wine."
