This week’s blow-up of the SF Parks Alliance only underscores the staggering number of SF nonprofits with improper spending scandals, and other riches-to-rags financial improprieties that have happened here over the last five years.  

Many San Francisco nonprofits do wonderful work, feeding those in need, helping the homeless, and beautifying our city. But the myriad of nonprofit scandals that have broken out these past five years shows that some nonprofits have been enjoying the use of your tax dollars for half-million-dollar concert trips to Dubai, $10,000 cottage rentals at Martha’s Vineyard, or $19,000 worth of tuition money to send some city official’s kid to UCLA.

As we’re in another busy week for nonprofit scandals, let’s relive the dizzying array of SF nonprofit embarrassments that have broken out in the wake of Mohammed Nuru figuring out how to use SF nonprofits as a million-dollar slush fund.


10. SF SAFE
The SFPD’s own affiliated nonprofit SF SAFE certainly enjoyed their lavish parties. Just look at those prominent SF city officials above, enjoying themselves at a party with lovely floral arrangements and a generous buffet. Yeah, turns out those floral arrangements were never paid for and the vendor got stiffed out of $17,000 total.  

That’s just the tip of the iceberg with SF SAFE, whose now-fired director Kyra Worthy (seen above with Nuru) was accused in a January 2024 audit of having have spent excessive taxpayer money on $162 luxury gift boxes, limo rides, and trips to Tahoe and Vegas. The following week we found out the organization was facing allegations of check forgery, and their vendors were owed millions of unpaid dollars. At the time, SF SAFE’s bank account balance was at negative-$16, and Kyra Worthy stands accused of misusing $700,000 in public money on this “crime prevention” nonprofit.

Status: The organization technically still exists, though SFPD canceled their contracts with them, and ex-director facing 34 felony charges

9. SF Parks Alliance
We don’t know how much money the SF Parks Alliance spent on the above video for an October 2024 party that raised a reported $630,000. But the video describes “over 80 community groups” the Park Alliance represents, and those groups are suddenly missing all the money they’d deposited with the Parks Alliance.

Mohammed Nuru also had his hands in the Parks Alliance till, but recently, the agency is better known for how they’ve made neighborhood groups’ deposit money disappear (while giving executives raises), and how they’ll be facing a number of audits and investigations. The SF Parks Alliance was reportedly dissolved this week.

Status: Just folded, SF DA has launched a criminal investigation

8. San Francisco Zoo
This nonprofit is more accurately described as the San Francisco Zoological Society, which runs the city-owned zoo. And they’ve been busy in this week of SF nonprofit implosions, as several of their board members resigned after an unsuccessful attempt to oust CEO executive director Tanya Peterson. This comes after a blistering October 2024 audit described the zoo as “unsafe for visitors and animals,” “dilapidated,” and “extremely outdated,” and Tuesday’s Chronicle report that the city’s Budget and Legislative Analyst’s Office says the zoo is withholding documents related to their current audit.

Status: Intact, still trying to get a couple pandas from China.  

7. Aquarium of the Bay
Another case here where the well-known institution is run by a nonprofit with another name, as Fisherman’s Wharf’s Aquarium of the Bay is operated by a nonprofit called the Bay Institute. The scandal exploded in May 2024 when nearly the whole staff there resigned over some obscure spat about peer-review of academic work. But this scandal went to 20,000 leagues when the CEO resigned amidst reports of profligate spending like $460,000 to go see Stewart Copeland in Dubai, then the aquarium lost its accreditation, though it still operates.  

Status: Still operating, angry fired CEO suing them claiming they were secretly selling shark blood to Disney

6. Urban Alchemy
The “street ambassador” nonprofit Urban Alchemy was founded in SF, though does plenty of work in other cities, and now pulls in an estimated $60 million nationwide. But they’ve managed a few significant scandals during their tenure in SF, like that time in 2022 when an employee allegedly shot someone while on duty, or accusations that ambassadors were carrying weapons on duty or dealing drugs on the job. And they are the group that was charging the city for services that caused a single tent in a sanctioned tent encampment during the pandemic to cost $5,000 per month, or $60,000 per year, or the equivalent of renting a regular two-bedroom apartment. The Nation has pointed out that Urban Alchemy was charging $34,000 per tent per year at a similar sanctioned camping site in Portland, and management of a tiny-home cabin complex in SF costs $80,000 per cabin per year.

Status: Still under contract with SF, but likely facing layoffs

5.  Human Rights Commission/Collective Impact
The name of the nonprofit is Collective Impact, and the Human Rights Commission is the SF City Hall Department department which paid collective Impact $1.5 million while the commission’s executive director Sherly Davis was living with and sharing a car with Collective Impact’s executive director James Spingola. Davis resigned when that hit the fan, though still has matters to be litigated like a  $10,000 Martha’s Vineyard cottage rental and getting $19,000 in city money for her son’s UCLA tuition.  

Status: Merged with the scandal-plagued Department on the Status of Women, described below


4. Department on the Status of Women/She the People
Again, we’re describing a City Hall department called the Department on the Status of Women, while the nonproit is called She the People, who made the fine video above for Mayor London Breed. But Department on the Status of Women director Kimberly Ellis was placed on leave for $10,000 worth of off-the-book moonlighting work with She the People and other political action committees, as well as some conspicuously pricey conferences, activities that Mayor Lurie has even called "unlawful activities."  

Status: Merged with the scandal-plagued Human Rights Commission, described above

3. Baker Places
In the summer of 2022, the city gave an addiction treatment nonprofit called Baker Places $1.2 million to help keep them afloat as the city contracted more work to them. But by last year, Baker Places was ordered to repay the city $7.6 million of costs where their operating expenses well exceeded what the city had budgeted for them.

Status: Still operating, on a payment plan for debts

2. HomeRise
An April 2024 city audit found that homeless services provider HomeRise had given staff raises and paid enormous bonuses while their housing units sat empty. That same audit concluded that the money could have paid for SRO improvements or tenant services, as HomeRise operates nearly a third of the city-funded SROs for the formerly homeless.

Status: Still operating, under new executive leadership from when this happened

1. The Whole Mohammed Nuru Enchilada
While the whole Mohammed Nuru Enchilada is not about a nonprofit, Nuru did use the nonprofit system to his advantage. Nuru was able to utilize the SF Parks Alliance as sort of a $1 million "slush fund" into which city contractors like Recology would deposit tax-deductible donations, and that money would be spent on lavish parties and swag for the Department of Public Works, which Nuru ran like a personal fiefdom. Also, how can we forget Lefty O'Doul's Foundation for Kids, which seemed to be another nonprofit slush fund at Nuru's disposal. And even after Nuru was long gone, city auditors still found a suspicious trail of $3.5 million in anonymous donations in the Parks Alliance's coffers, coffers which are somehow now empty.

Status: Nuru is serving seven years in prison for fraud and bribery, and see above about the Parks Alliance dissolving.

Related: Exposé Finds San Francisco Doled Out $90M Last Year to Nonprofits That Are Not In Good Standing With the State [SFist]

Image: (Right) @MrCleanSF via Twitter, (Left) Parker Brothers