Dear Colleagues,
I wanted to inform you about an important organizational update. In 2019, we began a process involving all staff and the board to revise the organization’s mission statement. Through this process, it became clear that we need to focus more on working in the South and centering our work in community by approaching it through a racial justice lens.
As a result, we have been working hard developing a new strategic framework and recommitting to our core mission: advancing a multi-racial inclusive democracy in our five Deep South states and across the country. I am deeply appreciative of all your contributions to further shape and define the direction of our work. We can all be proud of the work we do and celebrate the positive and growing impact we are having in supporting people of color and low-income and disadvantaged communities.
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During this time, we have had to experiment and learn as we find new ways of working and clarifying our priorities. In particular, we launched the state office model, which grounds our work in the perspectives and priorities of the communities we seek to serve. The state offices in Mississippi, Alabama, most recently Georgia, and soon Louisiana and Florida will spearhead our commitment to working in partnership with those who are most directly affected by human rights violations. The result is that our organization is pursuing more focused strategies to accomplish our mission and reducing activities that do not help us achieve our goals, which are outlined in the primary objectives and strategies document shared with all staff in May.
Over the last several months, the Executive Team has undertaken an analysis of our work with a singular goal in mind – to ensure that SPLC continues to have the most beneficial impact in serving the greatest number of people in line with our core mission. In assessing how we can best utilize our resources we focused on two key questions:
Programmatic Priorities – How can we focus our work within the strategic framework in order to deliver the greatest benefit to our communities and fulfill our mission?
Operational Changes– How can we align our operations to reflect our strategic programming priorities?
Given these imperatives, we have decided we need to restructure SPLC and have had to make difficult decisions to end some longstanding programmatic work and, unfortunately, eliminate positions which will result in layoffs. We also have identified some teams that can be consolidated to maximize efficiency and eliminate unnecessary duplication of effort.
I want to stress that none of these decisions are being made lightly, or without the utmost appreciation for the extraordinary contributions each of you make every day toward advancing racial justice in the Deep South. It will not be easy to say goodbye to our colleagues and to wind down established programmatic work. I know this news is hard to hear, and we acknowledge this will be especially painful. The Executive Team is committed to navigating this process with care and in accordance with our collective bargaining agreement. We have notified the union and will continue discussions with them throughout this process. We are providing them with the list of the affected positions in the bargaining unit today.
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Staff members who are affected by the restructure will receive an email within the next two hours offering a meeting to discuss details and answer questions; meetings will include a manager and either a Human Resources or General Counsel’s Office colleague. Bargaining unit members also will have the option of requesting a steward to join their meeting. I want to note here that every employee who is laid off, regardless of how short their tenure with the organization, will be eligible to receive at least one month’s severance and three months of COBRA payments if they are enrolled in our health and/or dental benefits. We will provide more details about this and other benefits to impacted employees.
We know that this situation is distressing and will cause concern across the entire SPLC community. We are committed to ensuring that those who will be impacted are respected and supported, and we plan to close all offices on Friday, June 14 to give everyone a day of respite.
Margaret (on behalf of the Executive Team)