6 days ago
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
S.F. nonprofit embroiled in Dream Keeper scandal warns of ‘complete shutdown'
San Francisco's efforts to cut off a nonprofit from city funding for allegedly bribing a former city official is threatening the future of the organization's programs for needy kids and their families in the Western Addition.
Attorneys for Collective Impact, the nonprofit embroiled in a scandal over its close ties to former San Francisco Human Rights Commission Executive Director Sheryl Davis, said in a legal filing Monday that the organization 'anticipates a complete shutdown of its programs by October.'
The attorneys were arguing against an attempt by City Attorney David Chiu to prohibit Collective Impact from receiving city funding for five years.
Chiu is seeking to debar Collective Impact after a joint investigation by his office and the controller found that the nonprofit had spent thousands on college tuition for Davis' son, paid for Davis to upgrade her flights to first class and covered costs related to her personal ventures — all while receiving millions from her department.
If Chiu succeeds in debarring Collective Impact, the nonprofit would have to end its summer and afterschool programs and close the doors of its three-decade-old Ella Hill Hutch Community Center, its attorneys Lauren Kramer Sujeeth and Si Eun Amber Lee wrote. The nonprofit would no longer be able to provide families with healthy food or help paying their bills.
'The disproportionate effect of poverty will once again come to Western Addition,' the attorneys argued. 'Put plainly, without Collective Impact, the community will suffer in ways that the city is simply not prepared to handle.'
Davis, who was close friends with former Mayor London Breed, resigned last September amid intense scrutiny over her management of the Dream Keeper Initiative, Breed's mission to reinvest $60 million a year in San Francisco's dwindling and underserved Black community.
Among the revelations was that Davis shared a home with James Spingola, executive director of Collective Impact. She also previously led the nonprofit.
Neither Davis nor Spingola have been charged with crimes.
Collective Impact was a major recipient of city funding. The organization has received more than $27 million in city grants since 2021, according to the city attorney's office.
Under Davis, the human rights commission awarded Collective Impact more than $6 million between December 2019 and May 2024, the office said.
The organization reported revenue of $8.3 million in the fiscal year ending in June 2024, according to its Form 990 filing, shortly before the Dream Keeper scandal broke. The nonprofit had almost $6.3 million in net assets.
But the city froze Dream Keeper funding amid budget constraints and intense public scrutiny last September, and the city attorney halted all funding to Collective Impact in March as a result of its joint investigation with the controller.
Attorneys for Collective Impact said the organization has since spent roughly $2 million in private funding to 'keep alive previously grant-supported programs, preventing the roughly 125 summer program students from suddenly having nowhere to go.'
Attorneys for both Collective Impact and the City Attorney's Office made arguments in legal filings Monday ahead of a hearing next week on the proposed debarment.
In its filing, the city attorney argued that some of the payments by Collective Impact constituted bribes and demonstrated 'corrupt intent.'
'Whether Collective Impact's payments benefitting Davis are characterized as illegal gifts, kickbacks, or bribes, Spingola knew that he was living with Davis, never disclosed their relationship and continued to direct City funds for Davis' benefit,' the office wrote.
"What are they going to do without us?" he said.
Asked about the allegations, Spingola said, 'I haven't bribed anyone.'
'How do you bribe somebody?' he said. 'I don't know what bribing is.'
The debarment hearing is scheduled to begin Monday.
