Praise, Not Flak, for Nonprofit Group

To the Editor:

I was deeply troubled to read The Chronicle’s story regarding allegations that Independent Sector censored Emmett Carson’s opinion piece on the accountability crisis (“Major Nonprofit Group Accused of Wrongly Stifling a Critical Essay,” September 18).

Facing the threat of legal action, Independent Sector and its president, Diana Aviv, may have had no choice but to ask Mr. Carson to verify the allegations first raised by the San Jose Mercury News on April 27, 2003.

Like the piece I wrote at Ms. Aviv’s invitation for her inaugural August Memo to Members, Mr. Carson’s piece was to be published as an internal communication to Independent Sector members. Although such communications enjoy some constitutional protections, they appear to be more vulnerable to libel action than the Mercury News article Mr. Carson referenced ever so briefly at the top of his piece. Such communications appear even more vulnerable when an organization has been put on notice that the facts in an article are in dispute, which was the case here. Such a battle would not only be costly and time consuming, it would distract Independent Sector and Ms. Aviv from putting their full energy into restoring confidence in the charitable sector.

My own recent polling on confidence suggests that the sector has yet to rebound from the scars inflicted by the post-September 11 disbursement crisis. Confidence remains virtually unchanged from last year — what goes down does not necessarily go back up.

The irony of all this is that Mr. Carson and Independent Sector actually share the same opinion regarding the need for greater accountability within the sector. Both have taken courageous positions on the call for transparency, and both have taken their share of criticism for doing so. Both also have the full support of their boards, Mr. Carson at the Minneapolis Foundation, and Ms. Aviv at Independent Sector.

Although it is difficult to weigh courage, it is useful to note that Ms. Aviv took her stand only days after her appointment as Independent Sector’s president. It would have been much easier just to dodge the issue. Yet, writing on behalf of Independent Sector members the first business day following the Mercury News story, for example, newly named president Aviv could hardly have been more passionate about ensuring that charitable organizations adhere to the highest standards of ethics and accountability.

Referring directly to the Mercury News piece, Ms. Aviv urged all Independent Sector members to review their own practices and policies and to engage their boards of directors in ensuring that their organizations meet the highest standards of financial and ethical standards. After encouraging members to go beyond the spirit of the law, Ms. Aviv concluded her member alert by promising to focus her fullest energies on ensuring the highest ethical standards and complete transparency in all that we do in the philanthropic sector. Two months later, she issued a second alert acknowledging that she did not mean to imply that she had based her April alert on anything other than the Mercury News article, while apologizing for any damage that her alert may have caused to the reputation of the Irvine Foundation or its former president.

It does not take a Ph.D. in reading between the lines to assume that someone counseled Ms. Aviv and Independent Sector to tread carefully in any future references to the controversy, which is precisely what Ms. Aviv and Independent Sector did in response to Mr. Carson’s piece. Absent the request for verification, Independent Sector and Ms. Aviv could well be held as negligent in somehow endorsing any disputed facts referenced by Mr. Carson’s otherwise innocent sentence.

I felt absolutely no pressure from Independent Sector to trim my August piece, nor have I felt any pressure from the many foundations that have funded pieces of my nonprofit-effectiveness research, including the James Irvine Foundation.

There is an important story here, but it is not about the conversation between Mr. Carson and Ms. Aviv. Rather, it is about growing public doubts about the sector’s ability to police itself. The sooner we turn to that crisis, the sooner we will see a rebound in public trust.

Paul C. Light
Professor
Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
New York University
New York