Opinion: Unlock SAFE. Nonprofit Needs to Open up to Restore Credibility. And I’ll Help

The domestic violence organization has made a good first step, hiring a new executive director. Now it needs to show it's serious about getting past its history of dysfunction.

SAFE Inc. of Transylvania County office in Brevard

BREVARD — Janice Baker is taking over a broken nonprofit, SAFE Inc. of Transylvania County. And, though she apparently doesn’t believe this, I can help her fix it.

As for that “broken” part, it was thoroughly documented in a story I wrote last year.

Sky-high turnover and rock-bottom morale, inadequate training for workers in crucial roles, the evaporation of promising programs and the redirection of funds raised for specific purposes.

But the main issue, sadly and ironically, according to a legion of former employees: SAFE was such a toxic place to work under Executive Director Salley Stepp that they compared it to the abusive relationships they were trained to identify and prevent.

I could hear it in their voices, sometimes through tears. These people were traumatized.

Nothing much had changed as recently as February, when I got a series of calls from employees at one of the nonprofit’s thrift stores telling me Stepp was still up to her old tricks, still undermining workers’ efforts to support SAFE’s vital mission of helping women and children terrorized by domestic violence.

Now the good news.

Stepp has, as the unavoidable pun would have it, stepped aside after 24 years on the job. And Baker, as best I can tell from a brief story in the Transylvania Times about her hiring as executive director earlier this spring, seems committed to her work and qualified to make badly needed improvements. Because SAFE has such an important role in the community, we should all be rooting for her. I know I am.

But rebuilding the organization requires reestablishing its credibility with donors and partner organizations. And to do that, SAFE needs to be open about its problems.

You can’t chart a path forward until you say where you’re starting from, as Page Lemel did after taking over as board chair of the troubled Pisgah Health Foundation.

She was forthcoming about its tight finances, the decisions that created this bind and her plans to get out of it. I know from talking to people that this frank appraisal has helped improve the perception of the organization, which, according to a community survey it conducted, had been pretty much driven into the gutter.

“That’s crisis management 101,” said Steve Woodsmall, one of several disenchanted former SAFE board members I interviewed last year. “You get ahead of it, you talk, you speak, you get proactive and preemptive.”

Of course, I understand why Baker wouldn’t want to talk to me. She didn’t create the conditions at SAFE and I’m sure my reporting about them marked me in her eyes as an adversary.

But that story was a symptom, not the cause, of dysfunction that has been an open secret in the community for years. And since that report reached more than 11,000 readers, I’d like to be able to tell as many of them as possible that things are different now.

Which won’t be happening any time soon. Baker and/or SAFE board chair Cindy Donaldson ignored several requests for face-to-face interviews before Baker sent me a definite “no” earlier this week.

In a response to an email I sent to Baker and the leaders of several local nonprofits asking about the impacts of proposed federal budget cuts, including funding for domestic violence organizations, she replied, “I will not be discussing our grants or the cuts. You may put that ‘SAFE had no comment.’ Nor will I be addressing anything from the past administration of the offices. I have no comment regarding that either.”

My assistance could start with some public relations advice: Even if you have no comment, don’t say “no comment.”

But I doubt she’s getting any good direction on this front from her board members, with whom communication has always been something of an adventure.

Late last summer, when I tried to pry some information out of the board about its response to issues raised in my first story, one of the few firm answers I got — or thought I got — was that Stepp wasn’t going anywhere:

“Salley is dedicated to SAFE’s mission in the past, now and in the future.”

Then, three weeks after posting, I read this headline in the Transylvania Times:

“Salley Stepp Stepping Down”

Which was slightly misleading. Deep in the story it was revealed that she actually wouldn’t be leaving until the end of the year. And even that, as I learned from those February phone calls, turned out not to be true.

Okay, so couldn’t I just get the information I need from its website, the public face of every modern organization?

Nope. It’s the digital equivalent of one of those hidebound books you see in old movies. You practically have to blow dust off the spine.

Besides the Times story about Baker, the most recent entries under the site’s “news” tab are from 2018, which makes them as old as some elementary school kids. Lists of top staffers and board members, buried in its 2023 annual report, are outdated and inaccurate.

To the organization’s credit, it has complied with the federal requirement of making annual tax returns available to the public.

These show a worrying trend.

SAFE’s total revenue fell from $1.51 million in fiscal year 2022 to just over $1 million in fiscal year 2024, driven by a decline in government grant funding from about $940,000 to $678,000.

One grant it no longer receives was from the Department of Health and Human Services, which previously provided funding for a rape prevention educator, who, among other duties, taught high school students the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships.

This educator and her supervisor were denied a training opportunity paid for and required by the grant, DHHS found during a 2023 site visit, which also revealed a lack of documentation about adequate supervision.

Was that the reason SAFE is no longer receiving this grant? Don’t know. The DHHS spokesperson I contacted only said the organization didn’t receive this funding for 2025 after a “very competitive” application process.

Which is the key takeaway: SAFE has to prove itself worthy of funds, not only to the agencies that distribute grants but to private donors, upon whom, especially in light of looming federal funding cuts, it may be more dependent upon than ever.

It’s one of the things I would ask Baker if I got a chance, whether SAFE does need to raise more money locally and how it intends to do so.

I’d ask about the status of board members, especially past chairs Vernetta Milts and Sharon Gurtler, whom former board members singled out as enabling Stepp’s mismanagement.

I’d talk to Baker about creating a more encouraging and productive work environment. I’d ask about her background and motivation, her plans for restoring SAFE as a beacon of hope for victims of domestic violence.

It’s difficult to ask hard questions of such an organization. No stories are more horrifying than those of women and children whose homes are places of violence rather than love. No work is more important than sheltering and serving them — or more deserving of our support.

But not asking these questions doesn’t do any favors to either SAFE nor the population it serves.

It leads to a situation that, since the organization describes its work as a “mission,” brings up another military analogy.

The nobility of this goal can serve as a shield against accountability, which I think is one reason the organization was allowed to slip into chaos in recent years. Nobody wanted to challenge folks doing this admirable work, even if they weren’t doing it very well.

My message to SAFE, and really anybody I might contact about an interview in the future, is that I’m more aware of the damage that negative stories can do to sources than I was during my years as a newspaper reporter, more aware of the need for nuance in all reporting.

That has led to an approach that would be considered soft by traditional journalistic standards. I cooperate as much as possible with the people I write about. I check back with them before I publish, not just to confirm facts but to make sure they’re okay with the context of their quotes. I even listen to their take on the overall focus of the story.

If Baker or Donaldson do agree to sit down to talk, I’ll let them know that it’s my job to keep an eye on their work.

But if they can show that SAFE is on its way to a better future, if they have good news, I want to help them get it out.

Editor’s note: I’m hoping for a boost from tech-savvy readers. I stink at social media, and for whatever reason, my posts on Facebook tend to sink like rocks. So, if those of you with a strong online presence could share NewsBeat stories you like with your friends, it would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Email: brevardnewsbeat@gmail.com