Dream Keeper nightmare: SF nonprofit loses $millions in wake of scandal
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After Collective Impact’s director slept in the same house as a city official, was it proper that he ended up with six-figure government contracts? Two SF agencies have now canceled five deals, worth millions of dollars—in fact, his org was the second biggest recipient of Dream Keeper Initiative funds. The SF Standard’s Jonah Owen Lamb, Gabe Greschler, and Noah Baustin report.
The Human Rights Commission and the Office of Economic and Workforce Development will cancel five contracts worth millions of dollars, citing a conflict of interest between the former head of the HRC, Sheryl Davis, and Collective Impact.
Davis resigned from HRC in September after The Standard reported that she had approved multiple six-figure contracts with Collective Impact while sharing a home and car with James Spingola, who leads the nonprofit.
Founded in 2007, Collective Impact received some $7.5 million through the Dream Keeper Initiative, the second-highest amount among roughly 350 recipients.
Between 2021 and 2022, Collective Impact received $1.5 million in contracts approved by Davis during a period when she and Spingola shared a home.
Davis in 2021 received payments from Collective Impact, according to internal financial documents obtained by The Standard, in a potential violation of the law. Records show Davis collected more than $5,000 in reimbursements for software subscriptions and other expenses from Collective Impact while approving the organization’s contracts.
Read the whole thing here.
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