MIA: Breaking Free Board of Directors

Visit any nonprofit's website and you'll find a list of the organization's board of directors. But not Breaking Free's site. Breaking Free has never listed its board members publicly. What are they trying to hide? A former staff member recently told me that the staffer in charge of the web site was specifically instructed not to add the list of board members to the web site. When that staff member asked why, no reason was given.

According to Breaking Free's 2015 990 tax form, the following people served on its board of directors between July 2014-June 2015:

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There is no information about who served on the board from July 2015-June 2016 because Breaking Free's 2016 990 is not publicly available, while the 990's of most nonprofits agencies are. Again, what are they hiding? Did Breaking Free not file its 990 on time?

A current staff member has reported to me that the current board is composed of Kathleen Mitchell, Jeff Kuhlman, Tom Child, Grace Child and Vednita Carter. I have no way of verifying if that's true but if it is, it means that the Breaking Free board of directors has bled members at an incredible rate. It's not surprising that board members would flee Breaking Free in the wake of controversy.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press reported in August 2015 that the Minnesota Women's Foundation had de-funded Breaking Free amid concerns that included the small size of the board of directors. "If Breaking Free wants to be considered for future funding, the Women’s Foundation has asked that, among other things, it expand how many people serve on the board and ensure they have training to improve management, Roper-Batker said. Breaking Free has responded that it’s working on those things."

Breaking Free is not working hard enough if only five people are currently serving on the board, including the outgoing executive director/president.

If my information is incorrect as to who is currently serving on the board, I encourage Breaking Free to publicly release a list of its board of directors members.