Big Brothers Big Sisters Case Study

Big Brothers Big Sisters of America has Moved Again? The 2015 Tampa Bay Times article proposes the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America’s (BBBSA) move is good for Tampa because it will bring jobs, visits by board members, and it promotes the career of one of their hometown leaders, Pam Iorio (Thalji, 2015). Two headquarters moves and six CEO’s (between 2009 and 2014) creates significant organizational stress, add in a Department of Justice investigation and anyone would expect massive changes at all levels.
Growing pains. The Americas chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters International has been through very challenging times in recent years. The organization has a long history of mentoring children in need, Big Brothers (started in 1904) joined
BBBSA was awarded 13.3 million at the end of 2011 by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), to provide mentoring services to youth at risk (BBBS.org, 2011). In June of 2013, a government audit found breaches so serious that all funds to BBBS were frozen because grant proceeds were co-mingled and affiliates were not required to provide support for expenses, there was no way to prove the money was used to mentor youth. Response from BBBSA officials acknowledged process control issues but highlighted instead, there was no intentional misuse or misdirection of federal funds (Attkisson, 2013). In the October 2013, BBBSI Board of Directors meeting minutes, the DOJ audit was not directly mentioned, however, the issue was indirectly presented as the reason for the Germany and Austria disaffiliation processes initiated 9/6/2013, effective 12/31/2014. The response from the International board specifically reminded the German organization that BBBSA and BBBSI were separate and the American issues should not materially impact the international organization. Interestingly, one of the other agenda topics, “Standards of Practice Summary of compliance 2012” suggests there should have been some awareness of the process irregularities (BBBSI.org, 2013). A Dallas Magazine interview reported that Pierson was unaware of the procedural and accounting issues found at BBBSA by the DOJ audit. Pierson also told the Dallas Magazine reporter that he
Analyzing the events of the past six years to uncover possible conditions and causes associated with the decisions to move the BBBSA headquarters, not once but twice, highlighted a few major themes. First, it appears that commingling was not unique to financial decisions. Sorting out who the true leaders and followers were in these organizations was challenging. There was quite a bit of crossover between the BBBSI, BBBSA, the Philadelphia Affiliate and the Irving Affiliate. When the reserves dried up because of the recession in 2009, everyone was scrambling to maintain programs, staff, donors and federal funding. When the board chose Pierson, I am sure the staff (followers) in Philadelphia felt significant job insecurity, the International office was already in Texas, and the Lone Star affiliate was the largest in the US, it is no wonder grant guidelines did not seem important at the time. As the new staff in Texas was being hired, the DOJ problems hit the national and local news, follower trust would have also taken a major negative hit. Communications with the leadership, I expect, was negative or guarded, at a minimum it was stressful for all involved. The bad press caused major donors to pull funding, which resulted in budget cuts, which ultimately eliminated jobs that were just