The beleaguered NAACP has adopted as its fund-raising slogan "Imagine an America without the NAACP" -- hoping, of course, that potential donors will find such a notion unimaginable.
But as the NAACP struggles to overcome a $4 million deficit and a profound leadership crisis, the notion of a trimmed-back, more decentralized NAACP is gaining currency.
NAACP watchers and insiders expect the Baltimore-based civil rights group to be reshaped over the next few months as it tries to control costs, raise money, pay bills and restore public confidence.
"We have a tremendous challenge at the NAACP," Earl T. Shinhoster, interim senior administrator, said at a Baltimore NAACP banquet last week. "Our challenge is to survive, to stay alive, to stay afloat, and to keep the capacity to protect the rights of those who for so long have been denied equality of rights."
Some analysts say they believe the challenge facing the NAACP is not only to survive but also to change -- and that a crisis that forces the organization to do so may be healthy.
Mary Frances Berry, chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, has suggested a streamlined NAACP could "become a loose federation of chapters, each standing on its own and funding its own programs," with national headquarters serving as a clearinghouse.
Frank L. Morris Sr., a Morgan State University political scientist, said the crisis provides a chance for the NAACP to junk its "autocratic model" of leadership.
"They will rebound because of their long tradition and because their real strength lies in the branches. The strength of the organization should be from the bottom up and not the top down. That's the real problem," Dr. Morris said.
While the 85-year-old National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is widely expected to survive, it faces several tests that will mold the organization that emerges:
* Board elections this fall in which dissidents led by Hazel N. Dukes and Julian Bond will indirectly challenge the leadership of Chairman William F. Gibson, who is under attack for alleged reckless spending of NAACP funds.
* Election of national officers in February that will determine whether Dr. Gibson, 62, remains in the unpaid post or makes way for new leadership. Dr. Gibson has refused to resign and has left unclear whether he will seek re-election.
* Fund-raising efforts that will prove whether the NAACP can climb out of its financial pit and maintain a sizable national staff. NAACP administrators told union representatives last week that staff layoffs may be necessary after Thanksgiving.
The NAACP has what the Rev. Benjamin L. Hooks, the organization's executive director from 1977 to last year, calls a "dual existence."
There is the national staff, with a total budget of $18 million, 117 staff members, Northwest Baltimore headquarters, Washington bureau, regional offices and an often bickering 64-member board headed by Dr. Gibson, a South Carolina dentist.
And there are the 2,200 NAACP branches, college chapters and youth councils. They are run almost entirely by volunteers and exercise considerable local autonomy.
"I think the national organization will carry on," Dr. Hooks said, "but it may be a slimmed-down version."
"The branches have a life of their own," he added. "Whatever you do or don't do nationally, hundreds of branches are doing something, many times as the only voice [for African-Americans] in their communities."
The NAACP is not slimming down by choice. Eighty-eight staff members are in the middle of a month-long, unpaid furlough because the NAACP can't make its payroll. Bills from July's national convention in Chicago are unpaid. Thousands of fund-raising letters sat unmailed for weeks until administrators finally came up with the postage.
Cash-flow problems are nothing new for the NAACP, but the steep decline in the organization's finances since last year has been dizzying.
At the end of 1992, Dr. Hooks laid off 22 employees and went on a crash fund-raising drive to leave the NAACP in the black.
He was largely successful. According to a deposition of NAACP treasurer Jerry L. Maulden, the Rev. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. inherited a $500,000 "cash deficit" when he replaced Dr. Hooks in April 1993, but the organization had $600,000 squirreled away in a reserve fund.
By the end of last year, financial records show, heavy spending had landed the NAACP deep in debt: Unpaid bills had soared nearly sevenfold from a year earlier to $1.4 million. The NAACP owed $2 million on bank loans to cover the money-losing Image Awards television program and other expenses. A $680,000 court judgment against the NAACP was coming due.
In May, Mr. Maulden shocked the board by reporting the NAACP had a $2.7 million deficit. But, buoyed by Dr. Chavis' reports of RTC soaring membership (later disputed), the board ordered no retrenchment when it met in July. And, confident that funds could be raised, the NAACP convention even approved a $1 million mission to South Africa.
The NAACP was soon plunged into an internal battle over a secret deal Dr. Chavis made to avert a sexual harassment lawsuit. It led to his firing in August. Now, with public confidence sapped by the Chavis controversy and subsequent allegations about Dr. Gibson's stewardship, the deficit has kept growing. NAACP leaders recently reported daily expenses of $45,000 and income of only $13,000.
The venerable organization, a civil rights colossus responsible for major legal and legislative victories a generation ago, is desperate.
"Racism is not our greatest challenge. Our greatest challenge is to protect and preserve our own institutions," Mr. Shinhoster said at the Baltimore banquet.
David A. Bositis, an analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, said the NAACP's success in opening the political system to blacks has inevitably lessened the organization's own importance.
"They are no longer anywhere near as important or critical an institution in black life as they once were," Mr. Bositis said. "Why don't Hollywood stars and political officials have a gala to raise $3 million for the NAACP? If the answer is it's not possible, you have to ask yourself: Why not?"
Critics of Dr. Gibson say donors are reluctant to rebuild the NAACP while he is chairman. They add that it's futile to search for Dr. Chavis' successor as executive director until the NAACP is financially stable and under new board leadership.
"It's time for a change," said the Rev. Bowyer G. Freeman, 34, president of the Howard County NAACP and a rising star in the organization. "People are disenchanted with the chairman. When people give their money, time and talent, they want accountability."
Julian Bond, whose dissident slate in the board elections is promoting itself as "tested in service and trustworthy," said it would take at least a year to reform the NAACP and put it on sound financial footing.
But Mr. Bond has no doubt the NAACP is still needed. He says the Republican triumph in Tuesday's elections and what he views as growing hostility to civil rights are proof of that.
"Then you need an organization like the NAACP more than ever," he said. "Even in the midst of this crisis, I don't think the NAACP is approaching death. It can recover."