Media and Advocacy Group Aided by Foundations Suffers Employee Exodus

The Center for Living Democracy, a leading proponent of community activism and of news reporting that seeks to provide answers to tough social problems, is reeling over the departure of more than half of its staff, including its executive director.

Last month, 10 of the organization’s 18 staff members resigned, with many of them signing a lengthy public letter that found fault with the management and human-relation practices of the center’s founders, among other concerns.

The center’s president, Frances Moore Lappe, who founded the organization with her husband, Paul Martin Du Bois, defended her management practices and stated that the organization was continuing to operate its key programs “without interruption.”

The Brattleboro, Vt., center operates the American News Service, which publishes original news stories about successful efforts by businesses, government agencies, and non-profit organizations across the country to solve the nation’s most vexing social problems. The news service has about 70 subscribers, including many of the country’s top newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and television networks.

Contributions from foundations account for about two-thirds of the center’s $1.25-million budget. So far, no foundations have announced their intention to cut the center off because of the organization’s troubles. But foundation officials who have supported the center, and who declined to be identified, said they have to be concerned when they see an organization in this sort of turmoil.

Members of the center’s board of directors have strongly backed Ms. Lappe’s leadership of the organization. “Throughout the process, we have maintained complete confidence in Frankie Lappe’s leadership and judgment,” says Benjamin Barber, a member of the board of directors who is also chairman of the Department of Political Science at Rutgers University.

Disgruntled staff members say they left because the organization failed to live up to its name. “There is a huge gap between the cofounders’ ideology and their practices,” said Steven J. Fortier, the former director of the organization’s Living Democracy Learning Center.

But Mr. Barber suggested that the opposite may be true — that the center may be suffering from too much democracy.

“It might be that this is a case where an allegiance to a political philosophy of democracy by everybody, including the board and Frankie, led some staffers to imagine that there were no legal or fiscal hierarchies,” said Mr. Barber. The center’s mission, Mr. Barber said, “led some people to think it was a total workplace democracy — one person, one vote — but organizations don’t operate that way in terms of the law, liability, or fiscal responsibility.”

The center’s former executive director, Wendy Tonker, contended that she had tried to run the organization on the principles of participatory democracy but was undercut by a “rubber stamp” board that was dominated by Ms. Lappe. “There was a disconnect between what was espoused and what was followed through,” said Ms. Tonker, who stated that the organization’s governing board informed her that it had accepted her resignation but that she had never officially resigned.

The disputes that led to the mass exodus are emotionally charged and may never be sorted out.

Initially, the conflicts were rooted in questions surrounding financial management and executive authority that trouble many groups. Eventually, a deep rift opened up between Ms. Lappe and much of the staff, which led to a tumultuous staff meeting on September 2.

At that meeting, Ms. Tonker announced her intention to leave the organization at the end of October, but, she said, was persuaded to withdraw the offer after many staff members spoke out in favor of her leadership. At the same time, many staff members urged Ms. Lappe to resign from leadership of the organization, according to departing employees.

Ms. Lappe said that her recollection of the meeting was that Ms. Tonker did not withdraw her resignation and that staff members did not actually call for Ms. Lappe’s resignation.

That evening, someone committed an act of vandalism at the center, smashing and defacing family pictures belonging to Ms. Tonker and leaving a typewritten note that said, “Leave Us Alone.”

The vandalism led nine staff members to announce their resignation, claiming that they feared for their safety if they continued to work at the center.

Ms. Lappe acknowledges that the vandalism that occurred at the center that evening provoked the departure of several staff members — and that the implication was that she was somehow responsible for the attack. But she said that she and her husband would never have engaged in such behavior.

“There is no logic on earth why we would have any motive to do such a thing,” Ms. Lappe said. “I can only conclude that it was a deliberate effort to discredit me.” “Throughout the process, we have maintained complete confidence in Frankie Lappe’s leadership and judgment.”