Two prominent national nonprofit groups are reeling from public disclosures that large sums of money were misappropriated in unrelated incidents by an employee and a former employee.
The groups, Acorn, one of the country’s largest community organizing groups, and the Points of Light Institute, which works to encourage civic activism and volunteering, have dealt with the problems in very different ways.
Acorn chose to treat the embezzlement of nearly $1 million eight years ago as an internal matter and did not even notify its board. After Points of Light noticed financial irregularities in early June, it took less than a month for management to alert federal prosecutors, although group officials say they have no clear idea yet what the financial impact may be.
Acorn’s behavior doesn’t surprise me — they seem a bit shifty in general — but the entire nonprofit sector is suffering from deeply inadequate scrutiny despite being awash in money. The spin from Acorn’s President doesn’t suggest that they’ve learned any useful lessons.
UPDATE: Reader John Richardson emails:
What I found most interesting is that the article made no mention of the numerous ties that Sen. Obama has and has had to ACORN which I agree is a shifty, and I would go further and say sleazy, organization. A simple Google search using “ACORN” and “Obama” pulls up 516,000 hits.
Imagine if it was the relief organization CARE and someone had embezzled from them. The reporter from the NY Times would have found someway to mention that Cynthia Hensley McCain aka Cindy McCain was a board member and not doing her job of oversight.
No doubt.