SPCA to Cut Back as Giving Fades

Citing financial ripple effects of the Sept. 11 East Coast attacks, the Los Angeles chapter of the SPCA is closing two pet adoption centers and firing eight workers.

Madeline Bernstein, president of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles, said the nonprofit organization has been hit hard by a sudden decline in contributions as many donors gave instead to relief efforts in New York City. Other Southland groups that depend on charitable giving expressed similar worries.

“After the disaster, a lot of our donations immediately dried up,” Bernstein said. “We’re not getting mail.” And only 183 volunteers have signed up for the group’s annual “dog walk” fund-raiser, set for Oct. 6, she said. “We usually see close to 1,000 by this time.”

Compounding the problem, a drop in the stock market has cut the value of the organization’s endowment in half, to $4.9 million, reducing its ability to cope with the decline in donations.

The SPCA is closing its Los Angeles pet adoption center at 5026 W. Jefferson Blvd. on Monday and its Santa Monica Place center Nov. 1. Its four other centers in Los Angeles, Hawthorne, Manhattan Beach and Long Beach will stay open.

Other charitable groups in Los Angeles County are worried about the effects of a decline in philanthropic giving. But some suggested the Los Angeles SPCA may have been more seriously affected because its fall fund-raising campaign began at the very height of the terrorist furor, while other organizations have not yet started, or have put off, their traditional year-end solicitations.

“I’m surprised to hear it’s fallen so quickly at the SPCA,” said Gina Lobaco, director of marketing and development for Bet Tzedek, a nonprofit public interest law firm. “We think we will sustain a decline in end-of-the-year financing. We hope not, but we expect it.”

The sudden decline of the stock market may turn out to be more serious than the presumably short-term drop in donations, said Katherine Springer, communications director for the California Community Foundation. “There certainly is concern among both foundations with endowments and nonprofits,” she said.

The tendency for lower contributions is not uniform. The L.A. Conservancy reported its contributions for an annual benefit, in October, are even with last year’s.

And Wayne La Pierre, chief executive of the National Rifle Assn., said that in the passions of the moment his organization has been getting higher donations.

But Ramona Ripston, executive director of the Southern California American Civil Liberties Union, said that several donors, citing the economy, have told her they will give less at the end of this year.

Holiday fund-raising at the Los Angeles Mission will not start until next week, and its president, Marshall McNott, said he hopes to see a good response.

“I tend to feel that what happened on the East Coast has given everyone a deeper sense of community, and that includes local communities,” he said.

Bernstein of the Los Angeles SPCA, however, did not seek to conceal her worry “that we’re going to have a disastrous Christmas giving season.”

“This particular event that occurred Sept. 11 is all-consuming,” she said. “It’s an event that has hurt us all in a way we’ve never been hurt before. We’ve never had to deal with the sensitivity of having to deal with such an event and the competition it represents for funds.”