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“DID YOU READ THE MEMO?”

Meredith Marks had more than a decade of experience in fundraising strategy and donor cultivation when she was recruited to be the major gifts officer in the New Leaf Foundation’s development office. Prior to working for New Leaf, Meredith headed up the alumni foundation office at Shepherd College, where she had acquired some large and noteworthy donations.

Meredith had just returned from a grueling five-day trip of home visits with several donors, combined with two media events. Her travel schedule was always heavy this time of year, but she was in touch with the office daily, at least through Jane Brady, her assistant.

Meredith’s boss—Neil Proctor, the advancement director—also was often out of the office on foundation outreach. However, he usually took days to respond to emails of any kind. Jane had complained to her that Neil’s frequent absences made it difficult to get basic approvals reviewed and signed. And she’d told Meredith that lately people had begun calling him the “memo king.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“No, he prefers memos to emails.”

“When is an email just an email?”

“When it doesn’t say memo.”

For the past few months, Neil had been busy with a rebranding initiative, and a clutch of consultants often encircled him when he was in the office. Meredith hadn’t seen any specifics of Neil’s plan—she’d only heard that it would set the foundation on a new course, modernizing both its projected public face and its internal structure and communications.

Part of the plan was creating a new logo. Meredith wondered what was so wrong with the existing one—based on a botanical print of the 19th-century illustrator Alois Auer. She thought it captured the foundation’s mission uniting nature and culture; it was both simple and elegant. Maybe it wasn’t a huge matter, she thought, but it was definitely a symbolic one.

Neither did she understand the purpose of the “new course.” She had long admired the foundation’s work and yearned to be a part of an institution with such a high purpose. She felt fulfilled in her development work—it was aligned with New Leaf’s mission, all was well, and no new course was needed.

Her best guess was that Neil’s plans had something to with the building proposal from CEO Cara James, which the foundation’s board of directors had approved a year ago. The foundation had spread out over the years from its small, appealing center near Shepherd College to a leafy block of neighboring townhouses. Meredith thought the location kept the foundation friendly, accessible, and close to its mission and the heart of its work. But the new building would be built on undeveloped riverfront land that was five miles outside town.

The New Leaf Foundation

The New Leaf Foundation is an independent nonprofit charitable organization dedicated to assisting local communities with social issues of concern—from employment, housing, domestic violence, and immigration to environmental pollutants, rural development, and water quality. The foundation is well respected by the broad range of community groups it serves, the federal and local government entities with whom it works, and the general public, who trusts the foundation as a reliable neighbor. Founded in 1948 by an anonymous benefactor and with a current net worth of about $125 million, it is popular with many along the political spectrum, established in the capital, and has a strong statewide reputation and volunteer base. Its stated mission is “to serve the public good by positively affecting social welfare and supporting community life in all its forms.”

The New Leaf Foundation’s 16-member board of directors, drawn from both the local community and across the country, meets quarterly, with its powerful, six-member executive committee meeting monthly. But little is known about the foundation’s inner workings or how it manages day-to-day operations at its main headquarters, where it employs about 200 people. Its reputation and mission makes it an attractive employer across its departments, which focus on public initiatives, grantmaking and development, communications, finance, and administration. If there was little transparency, there also seemed to be little need for public scrutiny.

Failing to Ask

Cara, a former high-profile economics professor and the author of a well-reviewed book on the history of social causes and economic policy, had taken over as the director and CEO of New Leaf when the much-loved former CEO, who was trusted by the board, retired. She was often pulled into planning meetings for the new building, but the fundraising typically fell to Meredith, who couldn’t help but note that there was no budget approval for the building and Cara had not yet approached anyone on the board for a major gift. When the board approved Cara’s plan, she’d had them in the room—all of them, face to face—and yet asked for nothing. They needed to raise millions, and Meredith felt she was being asked to do all of it herself. Most CEOs had a better understanding of their fundraising role.

At the first New Leaf all-staff meeting when Cara announced her plans for the new building, she seemed surprised by the level of employee resistance. She was eager to share the site plan, with a building footprint twice the size of their present one, and light-filled open space and conference rooms, but she was unprepared to answer the simple question of why this was happening now. How would it affect the foundation’s regular program work and projected funding requests? After all, the previous CEO had already drafted a modernizing plan, so said a friendly board member. Cara now wondered if her predecessor chose to retire rather than even attempt to change a popular strategic course of action.

Meanwhile, Neil had yet to schedule a staff meeting about the rebranding or the new logo because of his travel schedule; instead, he offered memo updates, which many staff ignored. Meredith found herself thinking fondly of her last position, where she held weekly prospect meetings with her staff; although she met with Jane and her New Leaf staff weekly, she simply emailed her updates to Neil.

On the one hand, Meredith viewed Cara’s and Neil’s remoteness as an expression of their confidence in her abilities; on the other hand, she worried that they were simply inattentive to, or out of touch with, the foundation, its business, and staff.

For weeks, Meredith had been trying to connect Cara with an important prospective donor who had a specific funding interest that would need her special attention. Meredith had lucked into the tip on her last trip, when one of her favorite donors described a certain friend’s passion for classical music education—which also happened to be a new middle-school funding initiative of the foundation’s. When Meredith learned who that friend was, a certain celebrity chef who had the same New York publisher as her CEO, she thought the ask was as good as done. She was excited—these discoveries were the little veins of gold that fundraisers toiled to mine; no amount of traditional wealth analysis could uncover them.

Meredith knew what her job was in these situations—prepare and set the way for the meeting, which would occur at the highest level. She had no problem with that. Some prospective donors were specific about only wanting CEO contact, while others appreciated Meredith’s efforts and simply followed her lead to Cara. But Cara was another matter. These days, she seemed distracted, unavailable, and rarely alone.

Neil and Cara

“Time for lunch today?”

“Is that a meal or a concept?”

“The former, and unfamiliarity with it breeds starvation.”

“How about 1, our usual place?”

Again, Meredith tried to follow up with Cara, but by the end of the week she still hadn’t heard from her and wondered if she was out of town. She hadn’t seen anything that would indicate that in the staff schedule, but perhaps it was an impromptu trip. The prospective donor was now traveling as well, and while she’d replied to Meredith’s early overtures after their chance meeting, she, too, was now unresponsive. Meredith decided to approach Neil.

“I’ve got a great opportunity for us and need your help with Cara.”

“Sure. Is it for the capital campaign?”

“Umm, could be.”

“Well, that’d be great. She’s been trying to get some of the board to sign on, and they’ve been very slow to support us. So anything we can do more publicly would be welcome.”

“I’ll see what I can do, but first if you could get me in with her, I’d appreciate it. She seems quite busy.”

“Later on tonight, stop by the board meeting. You know some of them anyway.”

The Board Meets

When the board of directors approved Cara’s building plan a year ago, some members pointed out that her chosen site, an undeveloped riverfront property, had environmental restrictions and wasn’t appropriate for an organization with New Leaf’s mission. Cara suggested that with the appropriate design, the building could be dramatic, compelling, and lead to further protection of the riverfront area. Others pointed out that the foundation wasn’t a conservation group per se, that other groups with such a mission could better protect the 20-acre parcel, or perhaps partner with New Leaf, but Cara won out and secured approval for the land purchase outright, for $17 million, from a former board member.

At that same meeting, the board was introduced to Neil, the new director of advancement, who delivered a presentation for updating the logo. Some of the board, particularly those who had been part of the current logo’s selection years ago with the former CEO, didn’t understand or agree with Neil’s reasoning. They still identified the organization with the previous CEO and her mission, and didn’t feel the need for change. Other board members who had come on since Cara’s arrival were entrepreneurial, vocal, and persuasive in welcoming Neil’s modernizing views and direction. Neil, trying to be conciliatory, promised to arrange a meeting with the board and the advertising firm he had chosen to design the prospective logo. But then, some board members, who were also on the powerful executive committee, wondered why there hadn’t been more discussion first rather than the presentation of a fait accompli.

Sensing an opening, Neil didn’t wait for the next quarterly board meeting. Instead, he went to the executive committee meeting later that month with the principals of the design firm in tow. Together, they presented several rebranding options to the committee and entertained their suggestions and addressed their concerns. This action angered many of the board members not on the executive committee, who pointed out that the purpose of the smaller group was to do the business of the board, but not act independently of it. While they had certainly heard of this kind of friction developing between other boards and committees, it had never been the nature of the New Leaf Foundation board.

The following two quarterly meetings were fully and, some observed, tensely attended.

Meredith didn’t feel like going to the board meeting. She’d heard about the recent friction caused by the logo and building proposals and the unexpected retirement of a few highly regarded program heads. She wasn’t sure it was the place for her, but she wanted to get a moment with Cara.

That evening, after Jane popped in to say goodnight and the rest of the floor was quiet, Meredith headed up to the sixth floor to Cara’s office suite. She knocked softly, opened the outer door—and startled Cara and Neil, heads together, deep in conversation.

Recovering quickly, Neil said, “Come on in. We were just getting ready to go over to the board meeting. Join us.”

Meredith didn’t respond, but stood in the doorway and watched as Cara, now scrolling through her phone, suddenly looked in her direction, smiled, and extended her hand in welcome. “Yes, you should come with us.”

Now Meredith realized she wouldn’t get time to speak to Cara about her donor after all. She had never heard any talk of anything between Neil and Cara, and while it was hard for her to keep up on relationships in the organization given how much she traveled, this one still would have taken some effort to hide. When Neil was hired last year, there been some criticism of his qualifications as overly academic and without much foundation experience, yet others thought his Ivy League background would be an asset. Did Cara know Neil from when they were both academics? She had never heard mention of a prior relationship. But now Meredith wondered whether her boss was declining to back her funding requests as he sought support for his own. Was he competing with her?

A Prior Relationship

When the local newspaper story about the foundation’s financial troubles first appeared, many in the community were surprised, even those long acquainted with New Leaf. How could an organization with such strong donor support and financial prospects have an annual deficit growing well into the millions?

According to financial analysts, Cara’s modernizing infrastructure and building mission was proving both extravagant and underfunded, risking grantmaking and sustaining programs. What’s more, there were unattributed quotes from longtime board members pointing to conflicts of interest in the land purchase, as well as a prior relationship between the CEO and the advancement director.

“You didn’t know?”

“I didn’t, but it’s starting to make sense.”

“How so?”

“She’d been so distracted. Out of touch.”

“No, I think she is very focused. Driven in fact. Just not in the same way as you.”