Rotten To The Core: Now the truth can be told
You may think I’m the wild truth teller, but I’ve been holding something back from you for years.
HOLD ONTO YOUR HATS!
I’m about to let you know that for all of the stories of corrupt nonprofits, and how it brings the sector down when we focus on them, sometimes we HAVE to focus on them, because justice is NOT BEING SERVED.
There are so many corrupt Urban Leagues that there is an actual blog devoted to the stories about these corrupt Urban League affiliates. I’m not saying that ALL urban league affiliates are corrupt, just many of them. You can see a few of these stories here. I don’t know who runs this blog, there’s no name attached to the blog, and you can’t even seem to make comments on the blog anymore, but it shows me that this problem is not just with one affiliate, but that this whole national nonprofit may indeed be rotten to the core.
In the last several months, even MORE stories have been coming out, in February 2011 and then again in May 2011, about the Urban League of Seattle, the Urban League of Columbus, and yes, even at the Urban League of Portland, Oregon. I used to work at this Urban League.
According to Nigel Jaquiss of the Willamette Week, the Oregon Department of Justice is investigating the CEO of the Urban League of Portland for theft. This CEO’s name is Marcus Mundy.
He used the Urban League credit card fraudulently in 2010, and you can see it directly on their 990 forms on guidestar. I’ve linked them here, for your convenience (It’s a PDF download of the entire 990 form). He was caught by the board, and he promised not to do it again.
But THIS YEAR he stole over $44,000 on the Urban League credit card that was supposed to be used just for gas for the Urban League Senior bus. Instead he used it for his children’s cellphone bills, for fundraisers at their private school, for his children’s clothing, for taking himself out to dinner at restaurants, for paying his parking tickets on his brand new Honda Odessey van, and for lots of other things. This is the guy who gets paid $91,000 a year. He claims “I did not spend enough time on administrative and operational issues,” he says. “But I absolutely did not use the Urban League [credit] card for personal expenses.”
Fool me twice, Mr. Mundy?
Rotten To The Core
I can tell you now, that when I worked there, I saw evidence of corruption.
According to an associate that I know, the Senior services staff was supposed to get a 4% cost of living raise every year. It was built into their grant from the county. For 6 years, their wages had not increased. Where did that money go?
According to another associate, there was the matter of a donation from The Federation of Women of $50,000 for the Senior Services program that no one ever saw again.
As far as I could tell, the CEO was never in the office, but when he was, he used office materials flagrantly to print out things for his children’s school, often reams and reams of paper would be used. He would ask me to babysit his kids when I had other work to do.
He would never return phonecalls, and reports he requested left on his desk would end up in the trash. He never approved people’s budgets, even if they came and stood in his office, after months of him ignoring their requests and pleas to just even LOOK at the budget, he wouldn’t even do that. He just didn’t seem to care about the position that he held. He wouldn’t raise money. He only called me into his office to yell at me, and then for several months, he refused to meet with me at all, even on our scheduled meeting times.
After I left that organization, two more development staff people came and went, in quick succession. The third person who came has been there less than 6 months. I’m sure she, like me, had NO IDEA what she was getting into.
According to the Willamette Week article by Nigel Jaquiss:
One county report, dated Nov. 7, 2011, said the records Mundy recently provided were so incomplete as to be “not auditable.”
Records show the Urban League’s board approved most of Mundy’s spending after the fact—but only after county reviews raised serious questions. And it did so despite the organization’s independent auditor warning that the president’s credit-card use could invite an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service.
Urban League Board Treasurer Charles Wilhoite, who says he’s speaking for the board, acknowledges that the organization’s record-keeping has been sloppy. He says the board is pushing hard for an improved administrative performance from Mundy.
Wilhoite also says the Urban League’s financial health is sound, and the board still supports Mundy.
You’ll see that Charles Wilhoite, the board chair, is not saying that Marcus Mundy will be fired. In fact,
“Everybody has total confidence in his ability to continue to lead the League,” Wilhoite says.
That is SO… WRONG!
Where do you draw the line? They are going to lose their county funding, which is most of their budget. Marcus Mundy doesn’t care about the job. Even the Oregonian says Marcus Mundy is stealing money from the Urban League.
There is incontrovertible proof that he’s stealing from the nonprofit.
Marcus Mundy has been stealing for over two and a half years. He was caught in 2009. Proof below.
Proof of theft
More proof from the 990 form
He will CONTINUE to steal, as he’s been found to be stealing again in 2011.
If it were anyone else, they would have already been shown the door. He is abusing his power, he is bullying staff, he is making an abusive workplace. He needs to go.
Am I a troublemaker? Have you read the evidence, and judged for yourself? What do you think?
Is there enough evidence from what I’ve shown you above to prove that Marcus Mundy has been stealing?
From the Urban League credit card records, from a financial black and white perspective, that he has been stealing. The board has known about it. The Willamette Week newspaper knows about it. Now the Oregon Justice department knows about it.
I think YOU have a right to know about it, whether you’re a donor or a foundation, and to give your money somewhere else.
We have a responsibility, as nonprofit bloggers, to tell the truth, to make the sector better, for all of us.
Let’s toss out the bad apples, and make this sector better together.
BREAKING NEWS: Urban League President IS OUT
Finally.
Justice is served.
What do you want to bet that he won’t be forced to give back that money? That there will be no trial? That the nonprofit will just “let it go”?
Or will the wheels of justice continue to turn?
January 16th, 2012 at 2:47 pm
The Portland Federation of Women’s Organization stand by the $50,000.00 donation that we gave the Urban League of Portland. Mistakes were made, but everyone make them.
He couldn’t be so bad, after all, he hired you. He gave you a job.
Sorry, I didn’t get your name.
January 16th, 2012 at 2:48 pm
Dear Ms Whitlow,
I remember you. I met you at the Urban League annual meeting in 2008 and at the dinner in 2008. I think your devotion to the urban league as a donor is admirable. However, you need not extend your loyalty to Mr. Mundy.
I want to make clear that I believe the League can be great, but that the entire board AND Mundy need to resign. We need to start fresh with people who can take responsibility for their actions. Don’t you agree?
When you say that “mistakes were made” that doesn’t ask Mundy and the board to take responsibility for their action or inaction.
It’s this kind of language that allows people to continue to put their trust in dishonest thieves masquerading as leaders.
I don’t object to Marcus Mundy as a person. What I object to is that MARCUS MUNDY STOLE OVER $44,000 from the Urban League.
He stole it from the mouths of the seniors.
He stole it from the people who work so hard every day just to make ends meet, the case managers, the coordinators working at the league.
He stole it and when he stole it he thumbed his nose at the black community in Portland.
Whether or not he gave me a job is not germane to this discussion Ms. Whitlow. What does matter is that he did not lead the league well. He did not provide a clear vision. He refused to attend meetings. Even the county agrees that he did not do his part to keep the contract by attending their meetings, either. He was only interested in his own self-aggrandizement. I should know. I was there, watching it, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 18 months.
And the $50,000 from the Federation of Women was not received by the Seniors, for whom it was intended. I assume you wanted that money to go to the seniors? If not, please correct me Ms. Whitlow. Did you WANT to give it directly to Mr. Mundy?
Before you say yes, keep in mind that 10 percent of the Urban League budget was going directly to his salary, and that was STILL not enough for his greed. He was making two or three times as much as anyone else who worked there. And nobody else stole, even when they had access to the credit card. WHY would you make an exception for him?
He’s a crook, not a good leader, the board should resign, and anyone who covered up his theft and lies should also resign.
The Urban League of Portland Needs to Start from Scratch.
January 16th, 2012 at 11:57 pm
Lillian,
You’ve got to be kidding. “Mistakes were made”? Really? When the leader of the organization stole money year after year–not once, but repeatedly, and for tens of thousands of dollars–you honestly dismiss that with a “mistakes were made”?
Do you think everyone mistakenly steals tens of thousands of dollars from the organization they’re a part of? Everyone makes the mistake where they use the company card to pay for their own parking tickets (tickets, plural)?
Are you really being honest with us, or with yourself? Please, stop and think for a moment… is Marcus Mundy, a common thief in an expensive suit, the kind of person you want to defend?
Marcus Mundy had an important role to play in the community as the leader of the Urban League, and he let everyone down. That was no mistake, that was malice, greed, and bad intent. Let him hang his head in shame, and shame on you for defending him.
Steve