Also note that thefts of this size are not as rare as they appear, because many non-profits simply don’t report them. I have inside knowledge about very few charities, but even I know one charity that suffered a larger theft than SI did, and they simply didn’t tell anybody. They knew that donors would punish them for the theft and not at all reward them for reporting it. Unfortunately, this is probably true for SI, too, which did report the theft.
Yep. We knew that would happen at the time—it was explicitly discussed in the Board meeting—and we went ahead and reported it anyway, partly because we didn’t want to have exposable secrets, partly because we felt honesty was due our donors, and partially because I’d looked up embezzlement-related stuff online and had found that a typical nonprofit-targeting embezzler goes through many nonprofits before being reported and prosecuted by a nonprofit “heroic” enough, if you’ll pardon the expression, to take the embarrassment-hit in order to stop the embezzler.
I suspect that some of the hit was due to partial disclosure. Outsiders were left guessing what exactly had transpired and why, and what specific steps were taken to address the issue. Maybe you had to do it this way for legal reasons, but this was never spelled out explicitly.
Also note that thefts of this size are not as rare as they appear, because many non-profits simply don’t report them. I have inside knowledge about very few charities, but even I know one charity that suffered a larger theft than SI did, and they simply didn’t tell anybody. They knew that donors would punish them for the theft and not at all reward them for reporting it. Unfortunately, this is probably true for SI, too, which did report the theft.
Yep. We knew that would happen at the time—it was explicitly discussed in the Board meeting—and we went ahead and reported it anyway, partly because we didn’t want to have exposable secrets, partly because we felt honesty was due our donors, and partially because I’d looked up embezzlement-related stuff online and had found that a typical nonprofit-targeting embezzler goes through many nonprofits before being reported and prosecuted by a nonprofit “heroic” enough, if you’ll pardon the expression, to take the embarrassment-hit in order to stop the embezzler.
I suspect that some of the hit was due to partial disclosure. Outsiders were left guessing what exactly had transpired and why, and what specific steps were taken to address the issue. Maybe you had to do it this way for legal reasons, but this was never spelled out explicitly.
Pretty sure it was spelled out explicitly.