Nonprofit Board Investigates #NonprofitBoards

Can or should a nonprofit board investigate Issues ?  Well the Tennessee domestic violence coalition did just that while I think the answer may be "it depends".  This coalition faced challenges when it learned through a whistleblower, that its executive might be misusing funds.  The feds are investigating and the Exec has left with an interim put in place.  W

Has the board failed?  Absolutely! While they apparently conducted an investigation that found little evidence that the director had indeed misused funds, the moving-on of a whistle-blower is in and of itself a crime which also raises what might not have been otherwise suspicions.  Any director interfering with a whistleblowing deviates from the rues and likely should be fired.  But the board took no such action and might still be in place had it not been for a federal review.  A lesson to the wise.

After top departure, an interim director leads Tennessee’s domestic violence nonprofit

NATASHA SENJANOVIC

JANUARY 16, 2023

 

Sheri SellmeyerNashville4All

Jennifer Escue is interim director of the Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence.

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The Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence has a new, interim head, following the abrupt departure last month of its longtime leader.

Jennifer Escue joined the nonprofit two years ago, as director of programs. Before that, she spent nearly two decades with Catholic Charities of Tennessee, overseeing programs for refugees resettling to the state.

As interim executive director of the Coalition, Escue takes over from Kathy Walsh, who led the organization for nearly 40 years until December. The Coalition is the leading state advocacy and educational organization for victims of domestic and sexual violence.  

Walsh left just days after WPLN and the TN Lookout reported that federal investigators from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) found she was involved in forcing out an employee, in 2019, who blew the whistle on potential misuse of grant funds. 

The federal report was finalized in September, three years after the former employee, Veronica Quinonez, filed a complaint with DHHS and the Coalition’s Board of Directors. The Board conducted its own investigation in 2019, and found no misuse of grant funds or retaliation against Quinonez. 

In 2017, state auditors had documented financial discrepancies and allegations of a toxic workplace at the Coalition.