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Ministry board ends its religious quota
By DAVID KARP, Times Staff Writer TAMPA -- Metropolitan Ministries, the area's best-known charity for the homeless and poor, will drop its requirements that professed Christians make up a majority of its board of directors. The board voted Thursday to eliminate the controversial religious quota that had splintered the organization and damaged its reputation. It also began recruiting 13 people from a "rainbow coalition" of religious faiths to join the 22 Christians currently on the board. The board asked its staff to review all policies that might "divide the hearts" of supporters, staff or people in need. "Today the board righted a wrong," board chairman Stan Harrell said in a press release. "After much discussion and prayer, we recognized that the Ministries' work -- serving hungry and homeless men, women and children -- is rooted in the Judeo-Christian value of helping the less fortunate. Other major religions also recognize these same values and we welcome all faiths to share in our important work." The change comes two months after the board insisted on keeping a bylaw requiring two-thirds of the board to be "professed Christians." The reaction to that decision in February was swift: One board member resigned in protest, and the women's fundraising auxiliary, the LAMPLighters, voted last week to break its tie with the ministries. The group, founded in 1986 to raise money for the charity, previously sent the board a blistering letter, calling the decision "embarrassing and insulting." Corporate sponsors, including TECO Energy and Outback Steakhouse, also expressed shock when they learned of the ministries' religious requirements. The charity, founded in 1972 by 13 downtown churches, had marketed itself for years as one that embraced -- and solicited donations from -- people of all faiths. Ministries executives said Thursday that no single action -- neither declining donations nor the LAMPLighters' letter -- influenced the change of direction. "We can't help homeless people if we are a source of hurt," executive vice president Karleen Kos said. "We didn't do this because of any one individual," Kos said. "The board did this because we are a community-based organization." The change started, however, when one woman spoke up. Last year, ministries officials asked executives at TECO Energy, a $1-million corporate donor, to suggest possible candidates for the board. TECO suggested Linda Karson, the wife of a TECO senior vice president, who had just moved to Tampa from Washington, where she had worked with pregnant teenagers and the homeless. But Karson learned she wasn't eligible for the board because she is Jewish. The ministries' bylaws required that all board members be "professed Christians." TECO Energy then told the ministries that unless the bylaw changed, it couldn't give any money in the future to a group that discriminated on the basis of religion. Metropolitan Ministries formed a committee to look into the issue -- and the group recommended dropping all religious requirements for board membership. But that's not what the board did in February. Instead, it decided to let non-Christians on the board, but limited their number to one-third of the total. The board also passed a rule that required a unanimous vote to change the group's mission statement, which mentions serving the poor as "an expression of the ongoing ministry of Jesus Christ." At the same meeting, the board voted in eight new members -- all professed Christians -- and didn't set a timetable to add non-Christians. "We are not going secular," Kos said at the time. A few weeks later, the LAMPLighters group wrote its parent organization a letter calling the board's handing of the issue "incredibly inept." "By substituting one quote for another, the concept of discrimination is still evident," the letter said. Last week, the LAMPLighters, which had raised money solely for Metropolitan Ministries for years, decided it would now help all charities that care for the poor. The group's president, Carolyn Black, was glad to hear of the board's decision Thursday. But she doubted that the LAMPLighters had caused the ministries to change. "I don't think we had anything to do with it," Black said. Karson wasn't so sure. "They were very brave," she said. "There are more hungry children in Hillsborough County than ever before, and it's unacceptable," said Karson, who has joined the Hillsborough Coalition for the Homeless. "Now that is what we can focus on -- and not who is on what board." -- Times staff writer David Karp can be reached at (813) 226-3376 or karp@sptimes.com.
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