Conservative group refocuses strategy

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Oct 2, 2000 | by Eric Gorski

Nearly a decade ago, Colorado for Family Values burst onto the national political scene when its controversial anti-gay rights measure, Amendment 2, won voter approval.

The Colorado Springs nonprofit group had a lot going for it: money, clout, grass-roots support. The organization made such a splash that trade groups boycotted the state and opponents formed their own organizations to counter its influence.

Today, Colorado for Family Values is hardly a national power.

In the past year, the group moved its headquarters from leased office space to the home of a longtime staff member. The board of directors considered folding or merging with another conservative group but decided to make substantial budget cuts, refocus and press on.

What happened? A combination of factors: leadership turmoil, failed petition drives and spending that outpaced donations.

The group is still active, weighing in on a state Senate race in August and same-sex marriage and hate-crimes legislation. But it's no longer pitching ballot measures or aggressively trying to set the agenda on gay-rights issues.

While critics interpret that as a rejection of Colorado for Family Values' message, the group denies that and says the shift was financially and strategically smart.

"We're a viable entity," said Colorado for Family Values operations manager Jim Witmer, the group's chief spokesman and only paid staffer. "We're still doing everything we were doing before. We did have a little bit of a down, but no longer."

Though its name suggests a broader mission, Colorado for Family Values has always had a narrow focus: fighting efforts to give homosexuals the same legal status as ethnic and racial minorities. The group also contests same-sex marriage initiatives.

The group successfully framed the Amendment 2 debate in 1992 as a way to prevent gays from gaining "special rights." The measure, which prohibited laws that would protect gays from discrimination based on sexual orientation, passed with 53.4 percent of the vote.

The fallout from the Amendment 2 vote polarized the state. Organizations such as Citizens Project sprang up to counter the message of Colorado for Family Values and other conservative groups based here.

Originally, the plan was to disband Colorado for Family Values after Amendment 2, said Martin Kuhn, a Monument attorney who used to be an officer of the group. But it stayed active while court challenges put Amendment 2 in legal limbo and continued to be active after the measure was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1996.

The group has dealt with turnover at the top. At times it had no director; in other cases, differences in philosophy led to resignations. The group has had no director for about a year and doesn't plan to fill the post.

The group also started to run low on funds.

Colorado for Family Values tax forms from 1996 to 1999 show that the group can raise substantial sums: $162,179 in 1996, $92,384 in 1997, $107,114 in 1998 and $90,687 in 1999.

The group is not required to disclose the names of its donors.

But Colorado for Family Values spent more than it raised in each of those years, according to its tax statements, which are public record and must be filed by most nonprofit groups.

The group spent its money on salaries, rent, advertising, postage and "special projects," among other things. It ran a $110,820 deficit between 1996 and 1999, the records show.

To stay in the black, Colorado for Family Values tapped its savings.

Those net assets, however, are dwindling: from $134,231 at the start of 1996 to $23,857 at the end of 1999, according to the tax forms.

Generally, a nonprofit group should keep enough money in reserve to cover one year's expenses, said Bennett Weiner, director of the Council of Better Business Bureau's Philanthropic Advisory Service, a charity watchdog group.

That's especially important for issue-specific political organizations, whose funding can ebb and flow depending on public interest in their cause, Weiner said.

Kuhn, who formerly served as the secretary/treasurer of Colorado for Family Values, acknowledged keeping afloat was a challenge for the group in light of its shift away from pushing for ballot measures.

"One of the problems - if you're a nonprofit like this - you have to continue being in the public eye to raise more money," he said. "One way to do that is to push initiatives."

Witmer, the operations manager, said the group was now on sound financial footing, in part because of the reorganization last fall.

At the time, the group was recovering from a failed petition drive aimed at clarifying a city anti-discrimination resolution and from the resignations of Perkins and then-executive director Paul Jessen.

Nancy Sutton, an activist from Massachusetts who briefly took over as acting executive director last year after Jessen left, described an organization in crisis.

"The board didn't really know what they wanted to do," said Sutton, who started her own group, Families First, in Denver. "I think they were just so overwhelmed with everything that happened. They were just kind of befuddled."