Price of ousting SVCF leadership revealed
Nearly $1.5 million in legal, severance costs; former CEO received $307,692 in departure
The leaders ousted for fostering a toxic workplace at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation walked away with tens of thousands of dollars in severance pay, tax filings show, revealing the cost of a scandal that rocked the nation’s largest charitable organization of its kind.
Former CEO Emmett Carson received $307,692 in severance payments and top fundraiser Mari Ellen Loijens — the central figure in the April 2018 uproar — took home $77,875, the foundation’s 2018 tax forms show.
But that wasn’t the biggest price tag for the Mountain Viewbased nonprofit: It also paid $1,068,839 to Boies Schiller Flexner, the law firm that investigated the allegations and advised the board of directors on its findings.
The foundation parted with Carson, its founding president who grew the little-known charity into the biggest philanthropy of its kind, in June 2018 after investigators found he allowed Loijens to bully and sexually harass her subordinates.
Loijens resigned a day after the Chronicle of Philanthropy in April that year detailed allegations from current and former employees of her abusive behavior. The internal investigation substantiated many of those allegations of what it called “racial and sexual comments, and other inappropriate comments and workplace behavior (such as berating and bullying).”
The foundation, whose clients have included Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, at the time would not say whether the two executives were paid a severance, and would not comment Friday on the payments indicated in its 2018 990 tax form.
“We have nothing additional to share beyond what is on our 990 documents about the compensation to Emmett Carson, Mari Ellen Loijens or any other former SVCF executive,” said communications Director Chau Vuong.
Neither Carson nor Loijens could be reached.
Marc Gunther, the Chronicle of Philanthropy writer who exposed
the scandal, wrote in a report Thursday on the severance and legal costs that “had the workplace problems never occurred,
the foundation could have used all of that money to help solve problems in Silicon Valley.”
Silicon Valley entrepreneur and philanthropist Steve Kirsch, a donor client of the foundation, said Friday that although he doesn’t know whether the investigation and leadership change could have
cost the foundation less, it was a necessary expense.
“They were trying to do their best to do it correctly,” Kirsch said. “I think they wanted to be just supercareful. It’s exorbitant. It might have been done cheaper. But I think it’s a small price to pay to fix the problem. At the end of the
day, the outcome was great. They ended up getting a new CEO I hear spectacular things about.”
The foundation in November 2018 announced Nicole Taylor, a former vice president at Arizona State University, as its new chief executive officer to replace Carson.
In addition to the legal and
severance costs, the foundation’s tax form showed it paid Carson $752,444 in compensation for the six months he worked in 2018. It paid Loijens $242,236 in compensation for her work through April.