Embattled CEO out at community foundation
Investigation: Carson indifferent to workplace complaints
The Silicon Valley Community Foundation’s founding president and CEO, Emmett D. Carson, who grew the little-known charity into the biggest philanthropy of its kind, stepped aside Wednesday in the wake of a scandal in which an investigation found he allowed his top fundraiser to bully and sexually harass her subordinates.
“Today, Dr. Carson will end his employment with SVCF after more than a decade of service, effective immediately,” the foundation said in an online statement. “This will enable SVCF to continue to rebuild its workplace environment and execute its mission as effectively as possible.”
The foundation board of directors had placed Carson on paid leave in April amid an internal investigation and appointed a former board member,
Greg Avis, as interim chief executive. Avis will continue in that role while the board searches for a new chief executive.
The foundation said the internal investigation substantiated “many allegations from current and former employees” against the fundraiser, Mary Ellen Loijens. Investigators generally described allegations of “racial and sexual comments, and other inappropriate comments and workplace behavior (such as berating and bullying)” but did not detail them, citing privacy concerns.
Investigators also found that Carson’s indifference to complaints about Loijens contributed to a toxic work environment at the foundation, and that he “tightly controlled the information provided to the board,” which “did not know the full nature and extent of the workplace misconduct.”
“I am sorry that this occurred and regret any role that I may have played in contributing to these feelings.”
— Emmett Carson
“The unacceptable workplace behavior that took place at SVCF as outlined in the investigative report should never have happened and there is no excuse for it,” the foundation’s online statement said. “We are deeply sorry to our entire community, especially our past and present employees.”
But that was little solace to some former workers like Rebecca Dupras, who was among those who publicly complained about the treatment of employees. She said after Wednesday’s announcement that the board let Carson off easy by not firing him outright from the outset and should have publicly revealed more of the investigators’ findings.
“It’s like a slap in face to the people who are still there,” Dupras said. “I loved that job, loved the mission and work we were trying to do. But to turn around and not fire him and show some backbone and courage, it’s terrible.”
The foundation would not say whether Carson received a severance package or detail terms of his departure from his $892,689-peryear post.
Carson’s departure, which the foundation said was advised by the law firm investigating the harassment complaints, marks a stunning downfall for a man who was called the foundation’s “indefatigable institution builder.” He had led its growth from the 2007 merger of two smaller community foundations into a philanthropic powerhouse on the scale of venerable institutions like the Ford Foundation, tapping the newfound wealth of Silicon Valley’s biggest names.
But Carson’s inability to temper his top fundraiser’s cutting and sexually charged remarks to the Mountain View-based foundation’s staff proved his undoing. Employees fled in droves. One sued.
Carson, 59, who lives in San Jose, issued a statement Wednesday that said he was grateful for “the privilege of a lifetime” of leading the foundation and regretted any staff discontent.
“Recent events have brought to light that in the pursuit of these ambitious goals, some staff felt they were not sufficiently heard,” the statement said. “Others felt that they could not trust that they could rely on the multiple systems in place, including an anonymous hotline, to report complaints or concerns and have them fully and fairly addressed. I am sorry that this occurred and regret any role that I may have played in contributing to these feelings.”
In April, the Chronicle of Philanthropy, a trade publication, published a lengthy report detailing alleged sexual harassment by Loijens. It quoted one unnamed former employee who said Loijens asked to “make out” with her at an after-work party. Another said workers had “a word of warning — muskrat — that they told Loijens they would say out loud when they felt she had crossed a line.”
Loijens, who has refused repeated requests for comment, resigned the next day, ending a career in which she was credited with helping to raise $8.3 billion for the foundation.
Carson had tried to distance himself from Loijens’ troubles. A day before the Chronicle of Philanthropy article was published, he stated on the foundation’s website and Twitter that the foundation was investigating sexual harassment allegations involving a senior staff member and that it “does not tolerate inappropriate conduct of any kind.”
But former employees said that prior to the article, Carson and his human resources director were uninterested in their complaints about Loijens. Her former executive assistant even publicly disputed Carson’s assertion that the foundation doesn’t tolerate inappropriate conduct.
“Please stop acting like you did not know!” Maria A. Moreno replied to Carson on Twitter. “Everyone knew what was going on and no one did anything.”
That quickly cast a cloud over Carson in the wake of the #MeToo movement that erupted last fall and quickly felled accused sexual harassers from Hollywood studios and network newsrooms to state capitals and corporate boardrooms. One foundation donor publicly threatened to withdraw and said others would follow if the board didn’t move aggressively to detoxify its culture.
Before joining the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Carson had spent 12 years as president and CEO of The Minneapolis Foundation, where he increased assets from $186 million to more than $600 million. He previously served as the first manager of the Ford Foundation’s worldwide grantmaking program.
In Carson’s first year in Silicon Valley, the community foundation had $1.7 billion in assets under management and issued $242 million in grants. By February 2018, the foundation announced that its charitable assets under management had grown to about $13.5 billion and that it had awarded $1.3 billion to nonprofit organizations in 2017. That included $436 million awarded to Bay Area nonprofits, making the foundation the largest grant-maker to regional charities.
Silicon Valley wealth fueled that growth: Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, gave the foundation its largest gift in 2013, donating Facebook stock worth nearly $1 billion.