In the wake of the precipitous closing of a small nonprofit college in Massachusetts, a tangled web of relationships links the president, an elderly donor/lender, and various staff and board members.
A law professor at Fordham surmised, “The existence of this 501(c)(3) organization is to provide benefits to the for-profit company, and…that is not acceptable.”
Sometimes, the effects of organizational culture on nonprofits are hard to talk about because sitting right in the middle of the mess is an undiscussable issue that recreates itself and drives good people out or underground.
Sudden financial crises in larger organizations make stakeholders go looking for cause. In this case, the internal view complicates the story that all the causes were external.
The Boston Globe has a history of periodically putting local philanthropy under the microscope, too often finding an insider culture that is less than healthy. At the Yawkey Foundation, the “closed little club” culture appears persistent and longstanding.
New York City is likely to be a source of deep information about what precedes nonprofit failure in the next little bit. The sources will include documents like this affidavit from FEGS.
An eighty-year-old social service organization announced its closure in January, but what exactly brought it to its knees? A revenue scheme?
