Planned Parenthood Golden Gate

SF Planned Parenthood clinic

Planned Parenthood Golden Gate will be a Planned Parenthood no more as of Sept. 3. 

A week ago, the board of Planned Parenthood Federation of America voted to revoke the trademark. “They were not meeting our standards for administrative and fiscal management,” said Karen Ruffato, vice president of affiliate services for the national organization.

The local nonprofit operates seven health centers with locations in San Francisco, Sonoma, Marin, Alameda and San Mateo counties. It provides health care services, including abortion, to clients—92 percent of whom live at or below the federal poverty level. “They’ve been an essential provider in all of the communities that they serve,” said Carlina Hansen, executive director of the Women’s Community Clinic in San Francisco.

Affiliates of the national organization use its medical standards and guidelines, educational materials and collective buying power to get better rates on supplies, like contraceptives, as well as the name. Without the Planned Parenthood affiliation, PPGG currently plans to keep running its clinics in Hayward, Oakland, San Francisco, San Rafael, Rohnert Park and San Mateo.

“We will continue our operations at all of our seven sites,” said Therese Wilson, interim CEO of PPGG. “We are extremely dedicated to ensuring that we will keep access available to the over 50,000 clients that Planned Parenthood Golden Gate serves each year. We are working really hard to keep our doors open.” The service is now holding a contest among its staff to come up with a new name.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America has assigned those counties now served by PPGG to two of its affiliates that operate in the region, Planned Parenthood Shasta-Diablo, which is headquartered in Concord, and Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, which is headquartered in San Jose.

Those two affiliates are now evaluating how they’ll serve clients in those counties. Mitzi Sales, acting CEO of Planned Parenthood Shasta-Diablo said: “I would be very surprised to have us not expand into our new service area.” Last year, her organization opened new clinics in El Cerrito and Chico, and this year it’s expanding its facilities in Vacaville and Clear Lake.

It’s possible that Planned Parenthood Shasta-Diablo and Planned Parenthood Mar Monte will open new clinics in those counties or take over some of Planned Parenthood Golden Gate’s, but no such plans have yet been finalized. “We are in open discussion and communication with the other affiliates,” said Wilson.

With roots dating back to 1923, a number of local Planned Parenthood services, representing 16 community clinics, merged under the Golden Gate umbrella in 1996. 

In recent years, the group has struggled financially.

The recession has cut its fundraising revenue in half, according to Wilson. The California state budget quagmire is adding to the pain, since, starting this month, PPGG will not get reimbursements from the state for Medi-Cal until a state budget is approved, which could take weeks or months. “This causes us to go deeper into reserves already critically depleted due to past budget delays,” Wilson wrote in an e-mail. 

But the interim CEO, who has been serving since January 2010, said that some of the current crisis has been of PPGG's own making. “To exacerbate these problems, over the past three to four years Planned Parenthood Golden Gate was not as attentive to its financial situation as it should have been. The result is the organization now finds itself in a desperate financial circumstance,” Wilson wrote. Planned Parenthood Golden Gate is now attempting a “turnaround,” she wrote, having cut expenses and increased revenue since January.