Those who harbor notions of Orange County being the stronghold for radical right wing conservatives are often surprised to learn it has a human relations commission and stunned survived the county's bankruptcy.

Rusty Kennedy,  Director of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, and Chair of CAHRO's Board of Directors, believes he has found an answer for how human relations commissions can survive in an era of declining reliance on government.  He makes no secret of his belief in an entrepreneurial approach to human relations and points to his budget as proof.  The County budgets just over $100,000 for the Commission but the Commission and its non-profit corporation, The  Human Relations Council, has a combined budget of over a million dollars and supports fifteen full-time staff.

CAHRO News explored Rusty's entrepreneurial philosophy in a recent interview.   

CN:  What made you decide to look beyond the County for funding?

RK:  I became the Acting Executive Director of the Commission in 1981 and wanted to put some of my mother's teachings into practice.  She was a teacher who always stressed the importance of giving people recognition for their unique contributions.  She insisted that everyone had a contribution if you looked hard enough. 

I decided to hold an event to recognize people for contributing to human relations and solicited funds.  I came smack up against county regulations that made it very difficult to accept contributions.  I became frustrated and funded it out of my own pocket.    Later when we were offered a $10,000 grant to do a police training video and could not accept it through the County, it became obvious we needed a nonprofit organization to serve as a funnel for funds coming from outside sources.

CN: It is not too unusual for an agency to seek a grant to carry out a specific program, but you have elevated it to a higher level.  What made you do that?

RK:  During the recession of 1991 the County eliminated the Commission on the Status of Women and the Human Relations Commission.  We managed to get the Commission reinstated but we had two-thirds of the staff that we had before and we had to expand our responsibilities to cover the Commission on the Status of Women.  At that point it became clear that the County was not going to be a reliable ongoing source of support and we needed to do something if we were going to have stability.

Our living room dialogs and projects with police and schools received attention and I felt people recognized the value of our work so I posed a number of questions and worked through them with the Commissioners.  The questions were almost like a business audit.  They were:

1.What work are we doing?

2.Who are our customers? Who wants us to do the work?

3.What are they getting?

4.Can they pay?

5.What do we do that nobody else does?

6.Can we charge for it?

7.Of those things we are doing that no one wants to pay for, should we continue them?

8.Are we doing things others can do as well?  Should we continue with them?

We honed in on the work we wanted to continue and brought in friends from the areas where we would be looking for funding.  We included a city manager, a police chief, and a business person in our strategic planning.  They helped us "package" our services and develop a marketing strategy.  In many cases they became our "sales force" by getting us on the agenda of meetings of their peers and by helping to convince others to support our services.  For example we decided cities should pay dues of $1500 plus one cent per person with a $5,000 maximum for our services.  The argument for the participation of the cities was best expressed by a city manager who said it was important to have a viable human relations commission to address intergroup tensions in a reasonable and responsible way to avoid being blasted as a result of an incident and have to react defensively.

CN:  How did you market some of your other programs?

RK:  We put our highest priority on working with the schools.  We currently have contracts with more than two dozen middle schools.  Our staff goes into each school and holds a retreat with staff, students, parents, and concerned community people and develops a task force to improve intergroup relations.  We can demonstrate that a school gets at least $7,500 in products and services from us [$2,000 of it is in the form of categorical funds that they use to pay for staff support and purchase our materials]. If a school wants to participate they have to come up with $1,500 and help us raise the rest of the money.

We also produce police training videos.  We started the project in response to an incident where police treated someone who was showing signs of a medical disability as an alcoholic.  The incident received a lot of coverage so we produced a video to train police how to distinguish someone who was displaying symptoms of a physical or mental disability from someone who was inebriated.  We then produced a number of other videos.  We now have a marketing company that takes care of printing, packaging, and selling them.  We get about $10,000 in royalties from the sales every year.

CN:  How has your entrepreneurial approach helped your budget?

RK: The County provides about 20% of our budget, about 20% comes from dues paid by cities and from fees paid by schools for our services.  Most of the rest of our budget comes from foundations and contributions.  We get a small amount of federal funds indirectly by subcontracting with sponsoring projects. 

The County covers my salary from general funds and the salary of a dispute resolution coordinator out of court fees. They also provide space for the Commission and Council staff.  In other words our staff would consist of a director and a dispute resolution coordinator if we did not look beyond the County for funding.  Between the Commission and Human Relations Council we have fifteen full-time staff and several volunteers housed in our office.

CN:  That leaves more than half your funds coming from grants and contributions.  Do you have a strategy for raising grants, or do you just wait for a project to come up and then write proposals?

RK:  No, we go after grants and contributions systematically.  We created an advisory board consisting of business leaders who all pledge to donate or raise $5,000 to $10,000 per year to support our activities.  They also give us credibility and open doors for us to solicit money from their peers, other corporations and from foundations.  One of my key tasks is to work with the Advisory Board and continue to recruit new members.

CN:  Do you think your way is right just for Orange County or do you think it is a model for others?

RK:   I'm not all cocksure  this is the way to go.  I look at the City of Los Angeles where the council made a significant budgetary commitment.  They have some well-paying positions that can attract seasoned professionals.  But, as I think about it, I believe it would be a mistake even for them not to broaden their level of support.

CN:  Well, maybe the question I want to ask is whether taking money from a lot of sources makes you think twice about taking on controversial issues for fear of alienating one or another of your funders?

RK:  Look, I do not deny that we take into account the impact of what we do on our funding sources.  But, name a successful city or county commission that can ignore the impact of what they do on their Board of Supervisors or City Council.  I can think of  places where commissions no longer exist because they did not take them into consideration. 

Actually, we probably have greater flexibility because we have multiple sources of support.  For example, when the County went bankrupt we had support from police and school officials as well as grass roots groups we try to serve.  We also knew that so long as we had minimal support we could continue.

I will concede one disadvantage in our approach.   Although, we have a large staff we do not have the flexibility to carry out enough issue-oriented advocacy.  It is not because we are worried about its impact on our funders, but rather it is because our staff are committed to carry out contracted duties and do not have the time to take on other issues. 

CN:  Does your commission and council represent the future for city and county human relations commissions?