Downtown Greensboro Inc. Caught In The Act

From GPAC2012:

"Charge to the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro:

The Greensboro City Council asked The Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro to convene a task force that will study the benefits of constructing a new state-of-the-art performing arts center. The task force is a citywide body representing a number of groups including leaders and volunteers from the arts, business and foundation communities. The city has charged the task force with:

* Creating an open, candid and constructive dialogue around the needs of a performing arts center;
* Creating an economic impact report and a feasibility analysis of a downtown facility; and
* Exploring using private investment to complement public resources"

But the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro appears to have gone beyond their charge. According to Federal statute 501(c)(4) propaganda is an illegal activity for non profits. (I assume there's some sort of exception for non profit political action committees.) According to definition:

"Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. Propaganda is usually repeated and dispersed over a wide variety of media in order to create the desired result in audience attitudes."

So what did they do? The Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro appears to have enlisted another Greensboro non profit, DGI, to start a propaganda campaign known as "Talk it up! to "enlist ambassadors to promote building a performing arts center in downtown." in what appears to be a violation of Federal non profit statutes.

Is Susan Schwartz unaware that she heads a non profit and that non profits are prohibited from engaging in propaganda? Or does she and Ed Wolverton simply believe the law does not pertain to them.

Continue to page 20. Bill Knight On The Greensboro Chamber Of Commerce.

Center for Creative Leadership Board Of Directors

The Center for Creative Leadership lists their mission as the following:

"Mission
We believe in putting our clients first. Our nonprofit heritage and educational mission give us unusual flexibility in a world where profit motives often drive or confine thinking. We have the freedom to be objective, wary of short-term trends and motivated foremost by our mission - to advance the understanding, practice and development of leadership for the benefit of society worldwide. We have the freedom to focus on your success.

Vision
To fully realize our mission, the Center will create new knowledge that advances our field and that positively transforms the way leaders, their organizations and their societies confront the most difficult challenges of the 21st century. These imperatives require that the Center become the preeminent global institution for leadership development and research.

To enact this vision, by 2015 we will grow in new ways and maximize the value of our unique assets. We will:

Explore and define new approaches to leadership through our research and, based on these lessons, innovate our portfolio of programs, products and services;

Expand our offerings in Europe, Asia and North America, while relying increasingly on partnerships, on-site engagements with leaders, e-learning and technology to extend our presence;

Invest in the skills and resources required to meet the demands of this vision, including integrated systems and processes that spur the development of new ideas and speed the exchange of knowledge.

Together, these efforts will allow us to attract the most accomplished faculty and staff and secure our position as the world's preferred resource on the understanding, practice and development of leadership."

Their board can be found here Their business is training leaders and through their Impact Greensboro project funded by the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro they promote projects like the Greensboro Performing Arts Center and other developer driven projects.

Not that there's anything wrong with....

Continue to page 13. Greensboro Partnership Lobbied To Eliminate RUCO?.