Eight of the nine directors of the new food bank organization resign in protest of the parent agency's refusal to turn over a warehouse and equipment.
San Diego's Neighborhood House Association (EIN 95-1648184 Form 990) is back in the news due to problems in spinning off its San Diego Food Bank subsidiary, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune (Jeff McDonald).
This huge agency with over $90 million in government contracts for head start and other programs had operated the food bank until late 2005. Then, as a result of scandals involving commercial sale of donated food, it set up the food bank as a separate subsidiary. But even then, the news reports raised doubts about how complete the spin off would be, as the agency continued to hold on to the warehouse and equipment, like trucks & forklifts.
Subsequently, a number of donors expressed interest in donating to millions to the food bank, but only if Neighborhood House would relinquish title to the assets and get out of the way. So far they have not, and now all but one of the board members of the food bank have resigned and its general manger has also left. The food bank remains in operation, but without the additional funding there are concerns that layoffs and scaling back might be only a month away.
Behind the current situation is an organization in transition. In September of 2005, the organization's president of 35 years, Dr. Howard Carey, suddenly died. His successor Rudolph Johnson started work on August 1 on this year, having been general manager of the San Diego Convention Center. So the organization has a new leader with limited experience in social service nonprofits, which may explain some of the impasse on issues related to the spin off of the food bank.
Nonetheless, the mass resignation of a board is a drastic step, and I wonder why the national food bank coordinator, America's Second Harvest (EIN 36-3673599 Form 990), hasn't taken a more active interest in these developments, especially during an unexpected leadership transition. The news reports state that Second Harvest was "caught off guard" by the resignations and could only comment that it is "reviewing the situation." It highlights the weakness of the extremely decentralized system of affiliation used by Second Harvest that a major metropolitan area can be in danger of losing its food bank, yet the national coordinating body appears largely unaware and unengaged.
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