so I’m reading this SF Weekly article called New College of Weirdness and Matt Smith is describing situations at New College and I’m thinking this sounds kind of familiar. This reminds me Tenderloin Housing Clinic in some ways, and then few paragraphs later, he did it…He says the magic words
San Francisco, a gathering place for nonprofit organizations and little-pond Napoleons, should keep an eye on New College’s Founders’ Syndrome case study. We should root for interim president Luis Molina as he seeks to put in place procedures, programs, and institutions that allow the college to function without depending entirely on its leaders.
Then let’s shift our gaze to the rest of this city’s menagerie of charismatic-leader-run labor unions, charities, churches, and other organizations.
I’m thinking of Larry Mazzola and his family-run plumbers union, Randy Shaw and his self-identified Tenderloin Housing Clinic, and the many other local organizations that falsely conflate organizational strength with control by a forceful leader.
It’s interesting that even in a tight knit organization such as THC, the cracks appear even to outsiders who can tell just from the residual clues, that something isn’t quite right
it’s the little things like ‘micro managing Napoleons” “not enough oversight” “too few checks and balances” that can add up to one big clusterfuck, and a publicly funded one at that
these are the things that don’t show up in a normal audit. When you have one responsible person overseeing a 200 unit apartment complex, and that person is away 50% of the time because of paperwork needs, guess what’s going to happen