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Nonprofit Closure Results in Nearly 200 Unemployed

Ruth McCambridge
December 21, 2010

December 20, 2010; Source: Buffalo Business First | In Hamburg, N.Y., Hopevale Inc., a 150-year-old residential program for “abused, dependent and delinquent children” is closing after suffering both revenue losses and low enrollment. Saying that its business model no longer works, the agency has informed 190 staff that they will be let go.

The United Way of Buffalo and Erie County has taken the bull by the horns, hosting a nonprofit job fair on December 23 for the workers.

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Hopevale, which ran a number of programs, was not small, with a budget of approximately $14 million a year, but this year it suffered a loss of $400,000. Its resident numbers had also fallen from 100 last year to 75 this past summer and then to the current 40.

While $400,000 may not seem like a significant proportion of the budget to lose for a single recessionary year, the agency had no reserves to buffer the problem. Apparently the decision to close and transfer the children in residence followed a few months of joint exploration by the board and staff before the group decided that its business model was not viable. Some of the programs on Hopevale’s 50 acre campus will be more slowly phased out.—Ruth McCambridge

About the author
Ruth McCambridge

Ruth is Editor Emerita of the Nonprofit Quarterly. Her background includes forty-five years of experience in nonprofits, primarily in organizations that mix grassroots community work with policy change. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Ruth spent a decade at the Boston Foundation, developing and implementing capacity building programs and advocating for grantmaking attention to constituent involvement.

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