The former director of a San Francisco nonprofit who went on to lead the city’s Human Rights Commission has been accused of misusing her position and city funds in a blistering series of allegations by the city attorney’s office.
City Attorney David Chiu said he was suspending the nonprofit organization, Collective Impact, and initiating debarment proceedings against it that would ban it from receiving city grants for five years.
Chiu, in a press release Wednesday, accused the organization of bribery and violating ethics laws. He alleged former HRC Executive Director Sheryl Davis violated conflict-of-interest laws.
Collective Impact supports the San Francisco Black community with programs like education and workforce development, afterschool programs and other social services, according to its website. As a nonprofit organization, it receives some of its funding from the city’s Dream Keeper Initiative, which has an overlapping mission.
The details of Chiu’s investigation were followed by an announcement from the mayor’s office that grant programs, which had been paused last year, would resume with new funding and a new process.
Probes by the city controller’s office and the city attorney’s office prompted then-Mayor London Breed to put a hold on the city’s Dream Keeper Initiative in early 2024. The program serves the city’s Black population by providing family and educational support, workforce and economic development, and seeks to help more Black-led organizations to collaborate with each other, according to the Human Rights Commission, which runs the program and is one of its funders, along with several other city departments.
Davis was accused of directing grants to Collective Impact while secretly living with its current director, James Spingola. She was also accused of accepting bribes and gifts from the organization, including money for her personal business ventures, travel, and tuition for her son to attend the University of California, Los Angeles.
Davis led Collective Impact from 2011 to 2016, before being appointed to head the Human Rights Commission by then-Mayor Edwin Lee. She resigned from the commission in September. She did not respond to a request for comment made through her personal website on Friday afternoon.
Spingola didn’t reply to an email seeking comment late Friday.
The two are accused of signing seven grant agreements between 2019 and 2024 to provide funding from the Dream Keepers Initiative. The two allegedly used tens of thousands of dollars for personal purposes that were sometimes deemed illegal gifts and bribes.
Some of the payments in question included first-class travel upgrades for Davis that were allegedly paid by Collective Impact, along with over $16,000 for renting a house in Martha’s Vineyard; about $12,000 to support Davis’ podcast and book ventures, and $19,000 in tuition for Davis’ son to attend UCLA.
Collective Impact was also accused of seeking reimbursement from the city for other ineligible expenses, such as about $50,000 to attend a Martha’s Vineyard conference and $75,000 in stipends it had allegedly given to members of the organization.
Chiu said that the organization had received $27 million in city grants since 2021. During that time Davis was prohibited from receiving personal gifts, which allegedly included money for booking guests on her podcast, called “Sunday Candy,” and $5,000 to arrange for the singer Goapele to appear at Davis’ book launch.
“Our communities deserve these resources, and we cannot allow public monies to be diverted for personal benefit and self-promotion,” Chiu said in the press release.
“All city employees have a responsibility to ensure that public funding is used as intended to deliver high-quality public services,” he said.
New funding with stricter oversight
On Thursday, Mayor Daniel Lurie announced that new funding for the Dream Keeper Initiative would be made available for new grant recipients.
Lurie’s office said in a press release that $36 million would be granted from the Human Rights Commission over three years. The grant process will also include multiple changes to increase transparency related to grant amounts, calculations, durations, and other improvements.
Those changes include a formal Request for Proposals process rather than the previous Request for Qualifications process, clearly defined maximum and minimum awards, and having a more defined, data-driven methodology.
Multi-year grants will potentially be awarded, rather than renewed annually, and grants will be restricted to registered nonprofit organizations. Previously, individuals and private businesses could apply.
The money will also have to be used to specifically benefit San Francisco residents rather than allowing it to be spent on programs elsewhere in the Bay Area.