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Monday, November 23, 2009

News / Theater Giant Magnet Hires Interim Executive Director Who Left Her Last Nonprofit with an IRS Lien and a Massive Debtload

Posted by Brendan Kiley on Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 4:56 PM

Marilyn Raichle, founder and former director of the Seattle International Children's Festival, has stepped back into the organization to replace Andrea Wagner, who was fired a few weeks ago after 13 years at the helm.

People are describing the situation at Giant Magnet (SICF's new name after a re-branding campaign) as ConWorks all over again: a popular leader of a performing arts organization gets the axe for reasons the board refuses to explain.

Now another parallel—the board hires a dubious replacement.

Back in 2005, Marilyn Raichle was fired as the director of Foolproof (a nonprofit that booked speakers like Bill Clinton and Cornel West). Two years later, the organization died of debt, according to board president Sheryl Harmon, because of "years of irresponsibility and mismanagement of funds."

From that 2007 story:

"I never mismanaged funds: That implies a criminal use of money," Raichle said. "It was difficult, God knows. I was juggling." Raichle guesses the board fired her because "they felt abandoned. Mom left."

"'Mom left'?" Harmon laughed over the phone. "I don't think she understands the scope of how many people she has hurt financially. How can you continue to take money from people you know you can't pay back? We're probably close to around $400,000 of unpaid personal loans to Foolproof and Marilyn," Harmon said. "There are those of us who stayed and did the right thing by bringing Foolproof to a close rather than let it continue to take people's money."

So. Mom's back.

(More below the jump, plus the question that claws to the surface and stalks around Seattle every few years: Do we have a board problem?)

Raichle replaces Steve Havas, a business consultant who joined the Giant Magnet board six months before Wagner was let go. He briefly took over her duties.

"We thought it best for this organization that we love that it find new leadership," Havas said. "We explained our reasons to Andrea and I don't think I should say any more than that."

“I have no idea why I was let go,” Wagner says. “Much as I have tried, I can think of no reason why this course of action was chosen.”

The board vote wasn't unanimous—Michael Dingerson, who has been on the board for eight years, resigned over the firing.

"I wasn't the only dissenter," he said. "And I don't think I'll be the only person to eventually resign over this. I simply, strongly disagree with the choice that they made." Even Dingerson was reluctant to explain the argument for firing Wagner. "It's fallacious: Just repeating it would be to repeat incorrect criticism."

A question has been hanging in the air ever since the news broke about Wagner's firing, a question that gets asked every few years: Does Seattle have a board problem?

A quick list of local board crises:

On the Boards fires Mark Murphy. The board of the Empty Space lets the theater die from bad cash flow. Also that year, the whole ConWorks thing.

Now Giant Magnet—I'm sure I'm forgetting others. They seem to happen just infrequently enough, someone pointed out, to fail to achieve critical mass. Just infrequently enough that people don't get together and try to figure out whether a) we have a problem and b) if so, how to fix it.

"The preponderance of this [Giant Magnet] board has not been on other boards," said Dingerson. And I don't think that's rare in Seattle. "You get an inexperienced group of people in difficult circumstances and they'll entertain some dangerous choices."

We have one unarguable problem: Seattle boards are not very suave. Even if they have good, justifiable reasons for firing these popular directors—reporting on these situations is like reporting on a breakup; you know who you like, but it's impossible to know what happens behind closed doors—they're all thumbs when it comes to execution. They appear scattered, imperious, silly, then back on their heels when they get blowback.

At the very least, the boards could be a little smoother.

We saw what happened when ConWorks clumsily swapped out a well-liked leader (Matthew Richter) for a not-very-well-liked one (Corey Pearlstein).

Let's hope the same doesn't happen to Giant Magnet—for the children's sake.

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Perhaps Giant Magnet's board members will learn their lesson when they (like Foolproof's board members before them) are paying off Raichle's astronomical credit card debt and facing liens on their own houses. Here's hoping.

Posted by Buttercup on November 23, 2009 at 5:15 PM

1)pssst...it's "lien"

2)Mark "Mom" Finley is heading a Seattle arts organization?

sweeeeet...

Posted by michael strangeways

on November 23, 2009 at 5:16 PM

"Giant Magnet" is an astoundingly bad new name for an organization whose old name actually explained what they did. "Re-branding"? Detonation of goodwill, more like.

And this kind of opacity with the most important decision the board can make -- Executive Director -- is just terrible. Dereliction of duty. Whether she was fired for high crimes and misdemeanors, conflict of interest, or just because the board doesn't like the letter "W" anymore, you can't leave it hang in the air like that.

Posted by Fnarf

on November 23, 2009 at 5:20 PM

@2: "Lien" is a noun, meaning the right to take another's property pending discharge of a debt. In other words, "the people you owe aren't allowed to break your legs, so they can take your stuff, instead." Here, multiple board members were on the hook for Raichle's malfeasance. The plural of "lien" is "liens." Did I stutter?

Posted by Buttercup on November 23, 2009 at 5:35 PM

Among those you're forgetting: 911 Media Arts. Also, per your own link, OTB fired Murphy in 1999, not 2005.

Posted by I hate registering for things on November 23, 2009 at 5:37 PM

Thanks.

Posted by Brendan Kiley on November 23, 2009 at 6:04 PM

the board of Seattle Shakes is also flirting with that unsuave line. but is there really a solution to these kinds of problems?

Posted by Harker on November 23, 2009 at 6:04 PM

Do these people (the board) read newspapers? What kind of idiots go out and hire a director with a history of A. Running organizations into the ground with crippling debt and B. Leaving the board on the hook for portions of that debt? They are either evil geniuses or gas huffers.

Posted by Shitstorm! on November 23, 2009 at 6:09 PM

i've worked in nonprofits for the last decade. there's a fundamental problem w/nonprofit boards. they're made up of well-meaning people, but usually people who don't actually have much expertise in the field in which the organization operates. rich corporate execs who want to help, for example, but don't know the first thing about actually providing effective homeless services, case management, relevant federal programs, etc... i think boards have an important role to play, in theory, but with there was some requirement that a majority of any org's esteemed board members were actually current or former leaders in the field (or at least current/former practioners). but i know then you wouldn't have enough rich people on boards, so maybe if that requirement was even for a couple of token board members.

Posted by mmmm on November 23, 2009 at 6:34 PM

@4, no, you didn't stutter, you jumped the gun. @2 was obviously referring, in both cases, to the post, and in 1) how "lien" was originally misspelled in the post title. I can see they've since corrected the title's spelling, though the misspelling lives on in the page url.

Posted by Q*bert H. Humphrey on November 23, 2009 at 6:48 PM

From my very narrow experience with one of the orgs mentioned in the comments, I agree halfway with #9. It's that the boards are unbalanced. A board filled with enthusiasts and practicioners in the area the organization is delivering services in is often very inexperienced in finance, fund raising, capital and physical plant issues. There needs to be a solid mix. All one or the other is a recipe for disaster. An arts org board made entirely of artists is likely not going to have the background to negotiate a building lease, or be very succesful at fund raising. And vice versa.

Posted by Steven Bradford

on November 23, 2009 at 6:52 PM

I served on a not-very-effective npnprofit arts organization board, well beyond the statute of limitations ago. My view is that our lackluster performance was not the product of lacking some magic mixture of backgrounds, but of our personal reluctance to wrangle with each other and piss off the hard-working, well-meaning and underpaid executives and staff members, including a parade of successive executive directors. But in this we weren't all that different from your average Board of Directors of, say, a failed bank like WaMu. Except for the underpaid executives part. Explaining one's self and operating fairly and transparently require hard work and accountability. I think Board members, volunteer and paid alike, naturally want to save those things for their day jobs. I'm not saying that's good, mind you.

Posted by fixo on November 23, 2009 at 8:19 PM

"ConWorks all over again"?
You're not accusing Wagner of sleeping with underage girls, are you?

Posted by Timrrr on November 23, 2009 at 8:52 PM

I think the question "Does Seattle have a cronyism problem" is more adequate. How could Marilyn Raichle possibly get this gig without cronyism after the Foolproof debacle. Having myself been let go for far less circumstances from a similar organization, in this town, there's no way in hell I'll get another nonprofit fine arts job without a stamp of approval from a friend in high places. And, well, it doesn't get any higher up than yourself, in this case.

Posted by Does Seattle have a cronyism problem? on November 24, 2009 at 2:03 AM

Let us not forget the hyper slow motion destruction of COCA due to an experienced board making some really questionable director choices for at least a decade.

NO. 13-
That is an outrageous thing to say. Pure slander. Asshole.

Posted by Hiro on November 24, 2009 at 4:08 AM

To add to what dear Fnarf said, Why, why WHY would a non-profit undertake a "rebranding" (which is consultantspeak/marketing term for what we used to call a renaming) in an economy like we've had the last couple of years? It's incredibly inexpensive to "rebrand": Not only do you have to change all your obvious, mundane stuff: stationary, website, etc, you have to change all sorts of legal things. Plus, probably pay some deservedly unemployed marketing clown to act as a "consultant" for the whole mess.

Posted by Catalina Vel-DuRay

on November 24, 2009 at 6:42 AM

@13, I hope that you are referring to the ugly and idiotic rumors that circulated after the conworks transition and not spreading those ugly and idiotic rumors yourself.

Posted by hiland on November 24, 2009 at 9:01 AM

Operating a nonprofit is tricky business at best. Board members, well meaning included, are often recruited into nonprofits not entirely understanding or maybe not even knowing professional nonprofit best practices. It's fine if a board member is recruited who has no nonprofit experience whatsoever. What is not O.K. is for either the nonprofit they are serving to not then train or provide 'professional nonprofit 101', 'board member 101', educational opportunities (e.g. taking a course or workshop or two at either Northwest Development Officers Association, the Executive Alliance, or Grant Writers Association of Puget Sound (there are many reputable and excellent educational options for newbies to the highly skilled nonprofit board, volunteer, or staff member in the Puget Sound Area); nor is it O.K. for the board member to not take it upon themselves to learn what is necessary to do their new volunteer job. Further, board members (whether working for a 'for profit' or nonprofit) must oversee and care for the organization they oversee according to the law (Sarbanes Oxley Act ( http://thegrantplant.blogspot.com/2009/0… ). In other words, there are laws that guide what a nonprofit board member must do and can or can not do. The idea that because a board member oversees a nonprofit that a) 'for profit' experience or skills are all one needs to oversee a nonprofit is inaccurate but a common misconception (nonprofit operations are professional and their own unique skill sets); and b) the idea that a board member is a swell member of the community for heading a nonprofit up (and giving their time) so they aren't really mandated to do any specific oversight or have to be accountable to anything (which is also grossly inaccurate according to the Sarbanes Oxley Act) is also commonly misconceived and more to the point, legally wrong. Finally, the lack of board skill extends across Lake Washington. The Bellevue Arts Museum's board's 2007 errors (and potentially illegal lack of oversight ala Sarbanes) nearly devastated the museum. I don't begrudge any community volunteer's wish to help and do applaud their volunteerism. I just don't understand volunteers (e.g. board members) who do not take their volunteer work seriously enough to do their due diligence and learn the basic necessary knowledge, skills, and the professional best practices associated with their new position (paid or not) and to also be aware of their legal responsibilities. I mean, who takes a paid position without knowing what is necessary to do the job? It's the same with nonprofits, folks. Ugh.

More...

Posted by Concerned for the Community on November 24, 2009 at 9:17 AM

@13
thank yeeeewwwwww....
you're forgetting the pile of cocaine and the live goat, though. let's get our facts straight.

Posted by Matthew Richter

on November 24, 2009 at 10:24 AM

@13
Timrrr is ugleee

Posted by Brian Faker on November 24, 2009 at 3:02 PM

@17 on 13, were there really rumors of a sex scandal?? i swear no one tells me anything. i was in a sex scandal? YES!

in the rumors, i was great in the sack, right?

'cause i'm told i'm pretty good at it. (if you can believe a 14 year old).

Posted by Matthew Richter

on November 24, 2009 at 3:25 PM

@21.

You are my new god.

Posted by turtle on November 24, 2009 at 3:30 PM

Yes there's a board problem.

4 words:
Seattle Fringe Theatre Festival.

Posted by Former staffer who saw them fix the vote to change to Sept on November 28, 2009 at 11:40 PM

There are both board problems and ED problems. There are boards that also DIDN'T fire EDs and even artistic directors when they should have (including at least a couple of our majors). Now I've been out of the arts field for almost a decade, but IIRC, there was a time when BVA put a lot of effort into training people from the profit sector to be good board members. Where did that effort go? This is an ongoing need. Who's providing the training programs in a concerted manner these days?

It can't continue to be a crapshoot. I had an interesting discussion recently with someone in tune with national arts trends and issues and we were reflecting on how the arts are still facing some of the same problems they have for the past 40 years and more, in spite of things like the Ford Foundation stabilization program, numerous other efforts by city, state, fed and private foundations to "correct" problems amongst arts organizations. NEA Challenge Grants, Advancement Grants, etc.

When are we going to learn, and what are the lessons that must be learned and more importantly, remembered as boards (and staffs) transition from one generation to the next? We keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again, and wonder why we keep having the same problems. Duh!

Posted by northoftheborder on December 10, 2009 at 11:23 PM

I'd also take a swipe at SCT's admin and especially YTN's board, and in particular: their hiring practices / vetting process.
Maybe the sexual offenders shouldn't be working for your groups, Hmmmm? Eh? What say we all agree and carry the motion and all that.

The boards are the ones hiring incoming board members, yes? There should be some forthright honesty about the job they are being asked to do.

I'm actually quite shocked there are sooooo many folks that assume ' Well, it worked last year, so we'll be fine again this year without any extra effort! *insert Goofy's hul-hup! laugh here* '

Also sad to see SICF/GM poisoned like this. Andrea and her group did good stuff - there are many years with much to show for their efforts. There are kids that remember those experiences for a lifetime.

Posted by Rev.Smith on December 14, 2009 at 1:24 AM