It has become cliché to compare various life experiences to dating, be it job hunting, looking for a roommate, picking a real estate agent or whatever. However, the cliché (as clichés do) often falls pretty flat in most situations because there is a clear power imbalance — someone has the power to give or deny you a job you want, a room in an apartment you like, money to fuel a project you want to pursue. Sure, you can ask a few questions and try to sniff out a few red flags but you cant go rifling through files or linen closets doing a top to bottom inspection.
You’re kinda at their mercy.
I’ve been thinking about this as more and more ties to philanthropy are revealed in the Epstein email tranches. There is Bill Gates doing (super!)unsavory things but also less bolder faced names thanking each other for charitable contributions and inviting each other to fundraising galas. It all really stinks not only to have proof of our suspicions about these people but also see it spilled in black and white. And what is even worse is the way it might tarnish some of the very worthy causes linked to these unsavory men.
However, the fact of the matter is we’ve been here all along. The exchange of virtue and fig leaves for funds has under-girded this sector since the beginning. With every drop of documents and files, many pray for a reckoning but a reckoning is just an inventory. It helps to know what’s there. But change comes from shifting and taking power, not just knowing where it lies.
1) Beloved SF cultural center buckles
After almost a half-century of lively Latino dance, theater, film, education, and other arts-related programming, San Francisco’s Mission Cultural Center for the Latino Arts has closed. Despite brave attempts to downsize and even closing the space for a time to stabilize things, the group continued to hemorrhage funds and could not hold on. The building, which was already scheduled for retrofitting due to flood damage, has been ceded back to the San Francisco Arts Commission; while their vast collection of political screen prints is being temporarily archived by partners. Meanwhile, the remaining board leaders have vowed to regroup and chart a course forward.
2) School created as provocation ordered closed
Riverstone Academy was opened in August 2025 as a rogue attempt to siphon government funds for religious education in Colorado. The school has been embattled since the start with the state threatening to withhold funds and the kooks at Riverstone threatening to sue for religious discrimination (what the actual?).
Ultimately, the county found that the industrial building where the “school” was located was unable to meet the building, fire, health, or zoning requirements and needed to be vacated. It remains to be seen whether these people try to move the operation elsewhere or online. Ayiyi.
3) Royal-related charity collapses under controversy
These days, many of us here in the US are looking across the pond and around the world to the ways they are holding their leaders to account for corruption and collusion (hat tip Brasil! Korea! Norway!). One of the latest to fall is Sarah Ferguson, the former Dutchess of York, who was found to have been communicating with Epstein while he was in prison for child abuse; Ferguson’s charity, Sarah’s Trust, has announced indefinite suspension and her companies have been dissolved. This comes on the heels of Fergie being dropped as a patron or ambassador from a series of charities last year.
Here’s to actions having consequences, folks!
4) Youth jails stay open despite long-standing order, brighter future envisioned
In 2017, then-New Jersey Governor Chris Christie ordered the closure of two youth lockups, the New Jersey Training School in Monroe and the Female Secure Care and Intake Facility in Bordentown. However, seven years later the two buildings remain stubbornly open as they wait for replacement facilities to be constructed.
Recently, a youth justice working group lead by the state’s outgoing attorney general released a report envisioning how the government might use the sites once they are finally vacated. Their suggestions include a school, vocational and career training, reentry programming, affordable housing, recreational uses, a heritage center that tells the story of the sites, or a New Jersey Center for Peace and Restorative Justice modeled after the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Sites in Montgomery, Alabama, which are part museum and part memorial.
The group was insistent that the locations should no longer be used for correctional purposes.
5) Road crash victim support charity slams the brakes
For over three decades, RoadPeace offered a peer support network for people who’d lost loved ones through crashes and also did advocacy for survivors and road safety. Founded by Brigitte Chaudhry MBE following the death of her son in 1990 and her shock at the casual attitude shown to road casualties and their victims.While the organization’s leadership expressed sadness at the closure due to financial sadness. Many staff members and other stakeholders state they were blindsided by the suddenness and felt like it could have been done with more care.
6) How To Shut Down A Business
“When it’s time to unwind, you literally need to take off all of the Legos one by one . . . If you take them off in the wrong order, that can also cause issues.”
Big thanks to Emily Goligoski for including me in this fantastic article in the Financial Times about the rise in services and service providers for winding down businesses and nonprofits. It was an honor and so cool to discover a few new peers in the space!
7) How To Close Your Worker Co-Op With Dignity
Thanks to my comrade, Mike Strode, and the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives for including me in this guide for worker-run cooperatives facing closure. My roots in activism are in housing and worker cooperatives so this feels like a full-circle moment.
Yours in the end,
Camille
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