Local Boys & Girls Clubs to keep director

After years of financial struggle, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeast Virginia is operating in the black and keeping attorney Dave Zobel as its leader.

The nonprofit has ended fiscal 2011 with "roughly a $25,000 net surplus," Zobel said. A precise figure should be known by week's end after June deposits from all clubs are collected, he said.

The surplus represents a turnaround from fiscal years 2009 and 2010, when the nonprofit ran deficits of about $500,000 and $400,000, respectively.

Zobel was serving as president of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeast Virginia's corporate board at the time and last summer became acting executive director.

In June last year, a club at Douglass Park Elementary in Portsmouth was closed, reducing the number of the nonprofit's clubs - which span from Norfolk to the Eastern Shore - to nine.

"I don't want to close any more clubs," Zobel said last July.

To handle his new duties, he took a year's leave of absence from the law firm of Huff, Poole & Mahoney, PC.

Zobel's charge was to put the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeast Virginia in better financial stead.

He has said the nonprofit had relied too heavily on government grants and foundations.

He attributes the organization's recent success to "lots of little highlights":

- Fundraisers that exceeded expectations.

- Leaving a few vacated administrative positions unfilled.

- Fundraising help from the nonprofit's corporate and unit boards.

- The reduction in salary of a few administrative positions.

- Scaling some jobs from full- to part-time.

- Increasing annual club membership fees.

- Instituting a monthly school-year fee.

In addition, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeast Virginia has received more grants, including $70,000 from the Boys & Girls Clubs of America to help keep some clubs open and to start mentoring programs in several other clubs, Zobel said.

Zobel plans to change his status with the state bar to associate member instead of active member. By doing so, he said, he won't be able to "actively practice law," but he'll continue to offer advice to his old firm if requested.

Currently, he remains a partner though he's not on the firm's payroll, he said.

"They're excited for me," Zobel said. "They're happy that I'm getting up every morning and going to work someplace where I feel like I'm making a difference."

Cheryl Ross, (757) 446-2443, cheryl.ross@pilotonline.com