There were many factors impacting our motivation when David and I founded Civio towards the end of 2011. The inspiration we drew from the Sunlight Foundation’s mere existence and early trajectory was definitely one of them.
We always considered Sunlight a beacon of hope for positive change. And we were terribly excited to get a little dissemination support and score some early collaborations with them back in the day.
That makes it all the more disheartening to read the review report recently published by the organization detailing the results of an internal investigation conducted, following a number of serious misconduct allegations made.
Under the caption “A dysfunctional culture”, the reviewers conclude that the managerial and work culture that developed within the organization was nothing short of toxic. The findings include gems such as bullying permissiveness, tolerance for aggression or hiring decisions callously made despite ample grounds for serious reservations.
For a long time I sort of resented the very limited interest shown by certain Sunlight managers for issues outside the US. It just caught me off guard at the time that they would not necessarily feel we were all rowing in the same boat, pushing for more transparency and accountability on a global scale. But never, ever would I have expected anything remotely close to what has just been unveiled.
At least two lessons stand out from this tragically sad episode: (1) the importance of properly empowering a strong HR function as a Civil Society Organization begins scaling; and, (2) the absolute need for more fluid communication channels between an organization’s Board and its employees and other stakeholder. Those two things were not in place at Sunlight, critically impacting the organization’s ability to prevent such gross defects from taking root.
And these lessons should now be chewed on and metabolized by us, and by every other CSO in our and other spaces world-wide.
