July 28, 2017; Simi Valley Acorn
The Simi Valley Community Foundation got the worst sort of wake-up call of its need to keep better track of its operations: its former executive director stole $45,000 over a period of nearly two years.
As reported in the Simi Valley Acorn newspaper, the foundation recently announced that it was suspending operations and wrestling with what direction to take the nonprofit that had been responsible for funding a human services center.
“In the past, we all had the opportunity to review the books, but what we’ve come to realize is that we weren’t asking the right questions or for the right documents,” the foundation’s board chair, Jarrod DeGonia, said in the newspaper interview. “Now we know what we should’ve been looking at and that we should’ve been paying closer attention to bank statements and other financial records aside from what was being provided to us.”
NPQ has reported in the past on how the mishandling of funds—in some cases