FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 4, 2011
Contact: Denise Moorehead, dmoorehead@tsne.org, 617.896.9346

Boston-Based Nonprofit Third Sector New England Restructuring

Boston, Mass. - Third Sector New England, a Boston-based nonprofit organization providing management resources to fellow nonprofits, has announced a restructuring of its programming. The reorganization is the result of a chain of events triggered by a lawsuit filed in Maryland by a subsidiary of global pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca against the University of Massachusetts Biological Laboratory.

Explains TSNE’s Executive Director Jonathan Spack, “TSNE receives royalties from AstraZeneca subsidiary MedImmune under a 3-way agreement signed in 1989 when we were the Massachusetts Health Research Institute. When we transitioned to TSNE, UMass assumed our obligations under the agreement although we retained our royalty rights.”

Over the years, Third Sector New England has used those funds to develop and provide support to its capacity building programs, which serve hundreds of small to midsized nonprofit organizations in the region whose constituents number in at least the tens of thousands.

“For AstraZeneca, the $33 billion colossus seeking to invalidate the royalty agreement after more than 20 years, the amount paid to TSNE each year barely registers on their balance sheet,” explains Spack. “However, the loss of this revenue will have a direct, negative impact on the many outstanding nonprofit organizations served by Third Sector New England each year.”

Given the uncertainty of future royalties, which represent more than 40% of the organization’s budget, TSNE has had to reduce staff and restructure programming. Working together, managers, staff and board made the changes, effective immediately, with a focus on the organization’s values and on the nonprofit’s commitment to deliver high quality capacity building services to core constituents. Those core constituents are small to midsized social change nonprofits in the Northeast.

For the foreseeable future, TSNE will refocus its training programs, which have served more than 1,300 nonprofit professionals from 500+ organizations since 2005, with an emphasis on offering custom-tailored onsite training. The NonProfit Center, offering safe, comfortable, affordable office and meeting space, will continue as a central TSNE program. Educational programs and charity drives will be scaled back to monthly or biweekly offerings by the end of the calendar year.

With deep regret, TSNE is suspending grantmaking for the Capacity Building Fund, one of the organization’s two grant programs. Support will continue to be provided to current and active grantees. Grantmaking for the Inclusion Initiative is on hiatus. However, TSNE plans to work with long-term partners to continue to gain resources for this critical re-granting program and hopes to announce a new round of grantmaking in 2012.

As the regional leader in the fields of fiscal sponsorship and executive and organizational transition services, Third Sector New England will continue to fully support – and grow – those programs, along with merger and strategic alliance work and executive coaching in the consulting practice.

Third Sector New England will continue to work with its projects, partners, funders and other colleagues to serve the needs of the region’s nonprofit organizations, as the organization works through this challenging period.

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