Emmett Carson, the charismatic and controversial former chief executive of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, has been hired as the chief operating officer of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, now under construction in Los Angeles.
For 11 years, Carson led the Silicon Valley Community Foundation through a period of meteoric growth, raising billions of dollars from technology executives, including Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, and the late Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft. With $13.5 billion in total assets, the community foundation is only slightly smaller than better-known endowed foundations such as Ford, whose total assets stand at $13.8 billion.
Carson, who is 60, resigned under pressure in June after a report from a law firm hired by the foundation’s board described a workplace culture that permitted inappropriate racial and sexual comments and unacceptable behavior, such as berating and bullying. “The SVCF clearly failed to provide a safe and inclusive workplace environment for its employees,” the board said.
His departure was set in motion by a Chronicle article published a year ago, which reported that Mari Ellen Loijens, his second-in-command and the foundation’s top fundraiser, engaged in abusive and inappropriate behavior. Loijens resigned the day after the article was published. Carson was subsequently placed on paid leave after staff members said that he knew, or should have known, what was going on. “Through their inaction, senior leadership and HR has created and reinforced a toxic culture of fear, blame and intimidation,” some 65 employees said in a letter to the board.
Carson will now take on a senior role at the Lucas Museum, a $1 billion project that is the brainchild of George Lucas, the filmmaker who created the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises before selling his company, Lucasfilm, to the Walt Disney Company in 2012 for $4 billion.
“We are delighted that Emmett Carson has joined the Lucas Museum as chief operating officer to oversee internal operations of our fast-growing institution,” Alex Capriotti, a spokeswoman said. “Emmett is a seasoned leader and brings tremendous experience in helping institutions scale and will guide us through a successful opening.”
‘Shocked and Appalled’
Former employees of the community foundation were anything but delighted.
Jennifer Wood, a former director of individual giving at the foundation, described herself as “shocked and appalled.” By email, she said: “There is no doubt that an executive-level job with this visibility would have had many qualified applicants. And yet the hiring committee chose the former president of SVCF whose internal collapse was known to every nonprofit in the country? The man who showed no remorse and offered no apologies to the staff who were mistreated by the head of fundraising for years under his watch?”
Rebecca Dupras, a former vice president for development at the community foundation, was also stunned. “How can we expect that he will operate differently considering his departure letter was unapologetic and he has never publicly taken any blame for his part in the bullying and harassment of multiple people over the decade-plus that he was in the highest leadership role at SVCF,” she said, also by email. “This is truly shameful and a clear example of why we need to continue to talk about this issue.”
An Open Mind
Some nonprofit experts, however, suggested that leaders can learn from mistakes and change their approaches for the better.
“Like many people, Emmett is both brilliant and flawed,” said Jan Masaoka, a nonprofit management expert and the head of the California Association of Nonprofits. “He can contribute a lot to society and this may be a place where he can do that from. I’d be careful of anyone making judgments about what people are capable of learning and changing so I think we should take a view of hope about this, ” she said.
Masaoka also pointed out that she thinks high-profile leaders in the corporate world have committed big leadership errors with far-reaching consequences, such as during the financial crisis of 10 years ago, but rarely face the kind of criticism leveled at nonprofit leaders.
In response to the concerns raised by employees, Capriotti said: “The museum is fully aware of the allegations during Emmett’s time at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.” She added: “We have full confidence in Emmett and his abilities and believe he is an invaluable addition to the museum team and that he will help guide us on a successful path as we build a world-class institution.”
Carson was unavailable to comment on these criticisms, Capriotti said.
Pursuit of Growth
A Princeton Ph.D., Carson got his start in philanthropy as a program officer at the Ford Foundation, then became CEO of the Minneapolis Foundation and moved to the Bay Area in 2006 to become the first chief executive of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, which was formed by the merger of two smaller grant makers.
Thanks to the riches created in the technology industry, the Silicon Valley foundation has become by far the largest community foundation in the United States. The vast majority of its assets are held in donor-advised funds, which permit wealthy individuals to donate cash, stock, art, or cryptocurrencies and receive an immediate tax deduction, with no required timeframe for passing the money along to operating charities. While donor-advised funds are legally treated as assets of the foundation, they are, as a practical matter, managed and disbursed by the donors.
Carson and his colleagues excelled at attracting donor-advised funds, but the foundation’s pursuit of growth “took precedence over the well-being of staff members …. [and] harmed workplace morale and helped contribute to an unhealthy work environment,” the board’s report said.
Carson steadfastly denied responsibility for the workplace problems. In a statement issued when he resigned, Carson acknowledged that “some staff felt they were not sufficiently heard” and that others felt they could not trust that their complaints or concerns would be addressed. “I am sorry that this occurred and regret any role that I may have played in contributing to those feelings,” he said.
Carson was paid nearly $1 million a year at the community foundation. His salary at the Lucas Museum was not disclosed. He will report to John McCarter Jr., the former president of the Field Museum in Chicago, who is serving as interim president while a search for a new president is underway.
Correction: A previous version of this article said incorrectly that Emmett Carson had been CEO of the Minnesota Foundation instead of the Minneapolis Foundation.
