Nonprofit News and Comment

MUTUAL BENEFIT ORGANIZATION

“Manhattan Club Plans a Financial Rebirth.” Wall Street Journal. April 8, 2013. The curtain isn’t coming down on the Players Club anytime soon, club president Johnnie Planco said at a news briefing on Monday. The financial stability of this theater-centric club, founded in 1888 and located on Gramercy Park, had been called into question by members, some of whom formed a committee in October 2011 to investigate the club’s affairs. The committee reported its findings at a club meeting on March 14, alleging that the institution was having trouble paying its bills, raising revenue and maintaining a consistent membership base, which is said to be about 550. Last Thursday, the club’s executive director of nearly 20 years, John Martello, resigned, and the club announced his departure in a statement the following day. Mr. Martello didn’t return a call requesting comment. “We are beginning a process this week of forming a search committee to find a new general manager and to re-staff and reorganize the office,” said Mr. Planco, who said he expects the search to take about a month. “We are open for business.” Priorities for the future include increasing patronage of the club’s rental spaces and bars, as well as increasing membership to 1,000. The club also faces a facade renovation that has stalled due to financial pressure, Mr. Planco said. “The club has had financial issues for a few years,” he said, though did not specify how many years. The club is currently facing a $26,000 penalty for temporary failure to pay its workers’ compensation insurance, a spokeswoman for the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board said Friday.

“Tap Night tradition continues.” By Cynthia Hua. Yale Daily News. April 12, 2013. A junior in a leprechaun costume, complete with shoes and top-hat, hid behind a tree outside Jonathan Edwards College Thursday night waiting to be inducted into one of Yale’s senior societies. Throughout the evening, cloaked figures descended on campus, rushing to initiation events, dropping off mysterious packages and generally drawing attention for their antics. In an email to the campus Sunday evening, Dean of Student Affairs Marichal Gentry told students to follow undergraduate regulations — which prohibit “activities that involve indecent exposure, extreme mental stress, blindfolding, confinement, assault” and several other activities — during society Tap Night on April 11. “If you’re tapping new members, I’m counting on you to provide leadership to them, by showing them how to plan a big event and play by the rules,” Gentry said in his email. “If you are being tapped, I’m counting on you to speak up and refuse to participate if anyone asks you to break rules or laws, violate your conscience, or risk your safety.” Gentry also said he knew “how exciting Tap Night [could] be” and hoped students would enjoy the event.

MUTUAL BENEFIT ORGANIZATIONS

“A Leader Resigns From Players Club.” By Pia Catton. Wall Street Journal. April 5, 2013. The cast has changed at the financially troubled Players Club: Executive Director John Martello, who served the club for nearly 20 years, resigned this week, according to a statement issued by the club’s board. The private, theater-centric club at 16 Gramercy Park has been struggling to meet its costs within the last year, according to numerous reports. A board meeting on Wednesday night was perceived by members and some former members as decisive in determining the club’s leadership and future. The statement about the resignation said nothing about the club’s finances. A press conference is planned for Monday. Mr. Martello didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment, nor did members of the Players Club’s executive committee. Members are forbidden from speaking to the press about the club, but bartender Joe Canela, a 10-year employee and union shop steward, said that by Thursday, once word had spread, the mood at the club was celebratory. “There were a lot of toasts. People were relieved and hugging,” he said. “The main thing people were saying was that now they had a chance to get the club back.” A group of members initiated a financial audit committee in October 2011. Their findings, which were reported to the club at a March 14 meeting, show a once-august institution having trouble paying its bills, raising revenue and maintaining a consistent membership base, which is said to be about 600. The exit of one leader may enable a change in policies but there are still many financial issues to solve.
Related story:
“Players Club Removes Director Amid Turmoil.” New York Times. April 5, 2013.

MUTUAL BENEFIT ORGANIZATIONS

“Skull & Bones: It’s Not Just for White Dudes Anymore.” By Buster Brown. Atlantic. February 25 2013. The Yale secret society that helped launched the careers of John Kerry and George W. Bush may finally be shedding its elitist image. Yesterday, John Kerry embarked on his first trip abroad as secretary of state. The foreign dignitaries he meets will be aware of many of his accomplishments — from his service in the Vietnam War to his ascent to chairman of the Senate’s powerful Foreign Relations Committee — but they may not know of a peculiar honor that was bestowed upon him during his junior year at Yale: membership in one of America’s oldest secret societies, Skull and Bones. Whatever else is secret about Yale’s famed — or notorious — society, the reach of its network is not. Presidents William Howard Taft, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush were all members. So were Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, Time magazine founder Henry Luce, and an assortment of CIA officials, Fortune 500 CEOs, and politicians who, like Kerry, have had the president’s proverbial ear. For generations, the organization’s alumni corps has granted a coterie of white, privileged, predominately heterosexual men easier entry into the upper echelons of American society. But that was then. More recently, the organization has become the antithesis of what it was when Kerry joined in 1966: Racist, sexist and elitist practices have been jettisoned in a rush towards more egalitarian standards. Yale’s famous old boys’ club has become a mélange of minorities, genders, and sexual identities that’s less dynastic and more dynamic than ever.

MUTUAL BENEFIT ORGANIZATIONS

“Feud over sign could force Fairfax’s Olde Belhaven to sell square.” By Justin Jouvenal. Washington Post. February 9, 2013. The feud that consumed Fairfax County’s Olde Belhaven would span four years and cost the community as much as $400,000, and it was ignited by one of the smallest of sparks: an Obama for President sign. The modest placard Sam and Maria Farran planted in their yard during the 2008 election put them on a collision course with the neighborhood homeowners association. It was four inches taller than the association’s covenants allowed. “Need I say more! This would lead to chaos,” a neighbor fretted in an e-mail about the precedent that would be set if the sign wasn’t removed. “Our property values would be put at risk.” Such HOA disputes are as suburban as cul-de-sacs and two-car garages, but few metastasize into legal battles that spend years in the courts, break legal ground and bankrupt the HOA. The battle lines in Olde Belhaven were starkly drawn. On one side, the Farrans said they were standing up to an HOA run amok. On the other, HOA supporters saw a couple that inflicted financial ruin on the association — and their neighbors — to make a point. Experts say such feuds are becoming more common with the tremendous growth of HOAs, which typically require residents to sign covenants governing architecture, landscaping and other matters when they move into an association neighborhood. The HOAs collect dues and often have the power to fine residents who don’t comply with the covenants. There were 10,000 association-governed communities in the United States in 1970, and by 2012 the number had reached 324,000, according to the Community Association Institute. One in five Americans lives in a neighborhood governed by an association.

MUTUAL BENEFIT ORGANIZATIONS

“Elks Fight Foreclosure.” By Thomas MacMillan. New Haven Independent. January 4, 2013. In December, the Elks celebrated 105 years in New Haven and hosted dozens of kids at its annual Christmas party. That same month, an ominous sign appeared on the lawn of the Dixwell African-American fraternal organization’s home. “Foreclosure sale by public auction on these premises,” the sign reads, outside the brick Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World lodge at 87 Webster St. The group has fallen on hard times. The Elks owe over $22,000 in property taxes to the city, which filed suit against the organization in May 2011. One year later, in May 2012, a judge issued an order for a foreclosure by sale. An auction date has been set for Jan. 19. Jorge Lopes, the lodge’s “Exalted Ruler,” said he remains optimistic that the lodge will stay off the auction block. He said the Elks are looking to take out a loan to pay their tax debt. If they escape the foreclosure, the Elks’ next challenge will be to rebuild the fraternal organization, which has dwindled from 500 members in its heyday to fewer than 100 today, Lopes said. The Elks, and their women’s auxiliary, the Daughters of Elks, will have to change to survive.

“Delta Sigma Theta Sorority celebrates 100 years of black sisterhood in D.C.” By Michael Livingston II. Washington Post. January 11, 2013. Founded at Howard by 22 African American undergraduates on Jan. 13, 1913, the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority has more than 200,000 members. Notable Deltas have included civil rights activists Mary McLeod Bethune and Dorothy Irene Height, singers Aretha Franklin and Lena Horne, and politicians Shirley Chisholm and Barbara Jordan. Delta women have marched for women’s suffrage, participated in public policy in the nation’s capital and hosted countless mentorship and service programs — all in an effort to create change in their community. The historically black sorority is not a monument but a movement, said Delta’s 24th president, Cynthia M.A. Butler-McIntyre, two years ago at the 50th national convention. Deltas have preached innovation since their founders planned changes to the first sisterhood they rushed — Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. The genesis of Delta, and the root of the AKA-Delta rivalry, was on Oct. 11, 1912, when 22 women were initiated into AKA, then the only black women’s sorority. Of those 22, seven were elected officers, including Myra Davis Hemmings, who became chapter president. Almost immediately after taking office, the newcomers voiced their displeasure with the direction the organization was heading. They thought AKA was too focused on social activities instead of social activism. They voted to reconstruct AKA from within — the name, colors, symbols, everything had to go, they said. AKA incorporator Nellie Quander rejected this notion and gave the women a deadline to end their plans. Instead, the 22 decided to separate and formed Delta Sigma Theta. “Delta is about change,” said Karen Stapleton, 47, a clinical social worker from Alexandria. Stapleton was initiated into the Alpha Eta chapter at Virginia State University in 1987. She said being in this sorority gave her a deeper connection to fellow black women. “I could travel anywhere in the United States and be called ‘sister,’?” Stapleton said.Many black women of prominence are members of one of these two century-old sororities. You will also find many AKAs and Deltas in the same families — mothers, sisters, godmothers, aunts.

MUTUAL BENEFIT ORGANIZATIONS

“A Changing Clubhouse, a Changing Faculty.” By Radhika Jain and Kevin J. Wu. Harvard Crimson. December 17, 2012. Dean of the Extension School Michael Shinagel went to the Faculty Club for the first time when he was a graduate student, as a guest of late English professor Howard Mumford Jones. Over lunch—a rare honor for Shinagel, as the Club was generally reserved for Harvard’s most senior echelon of faculty and administration—Jones outlined his vision for their work on a foundation together. “‘One to admire, and one to perform.’” Shinagel smiles in his recollection of that first visit. He would eventually serve as a member of the Club’s Managing Board, its most recent president, and a member of the Advisory Board. Over “many a luncheon” at the Club’s renowned Long Table, he would woo new faculty members for the extension school, of which he has been dean since 1975. At the Club, he met visionaries and politicians, wined and dined his colleagues, and put up good friends in the guest rooms on the third floor. once a mainstay for the professor progressing through decades of a career at Harvard, the Club today is less likely to serve as the center of professorial social life. Over time, it has opened its doors to new segments of Harvard’s community, and the nature of the faculty has changed. Once the professors’ clubhouse, the Faculty Club is no longer just the faculty’s club.

MUTUAL BENEFIT ORGANIZATIONS

“Gramercy Club Anoints a New Era of Players.” By Aoexandra Symonds. Wall Street Journal. October 2, 2012. The Players, founded in 1888 by Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth, Mark Twain and others, aims to promote ties between the theater community and its “kindred professions”—a term loosely defined to include everything from literature and painting to law and medicine. Sunday evening’s living and posthumous inductees included, along with Mr. Albee, journalist and Obie Award founder Jerry Tallmer; actors Clark Gable, Ethan Hawke, Janet Leigh and Martha Plimpton; sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens; and even an astronaut, Scott Carpenter. A portrait of each, set to hang alongside dozens of others in the Players’ townhouse, was commissioned for the occasion.

“Alpha Phi Will Be Harvard’s Fourth Sorority.” By Melanie A. Guzman. Harvard Crimson. October 03, 2012. Concluding a year-long search for the newest addition to Harvard Greek life, the Cambridge-Area Panhellenic Council announced Monday that the Alpha Phi sorority will begin recruitment next spring.
Alpha Phi will join Kappa Kappa Gamma, Delta Gamma, and Kappa Alpha Theta as Harvard’s fourth sorority. Harvard is also home to three male fraternities—Alpha Epsilon Pi, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, and Sigma Chi. Last April, The Crimson first reported that the three present sororities were in the process of choosing a new sorority to join their ranks after more than 10 percent of Harvard’s female freshmen, sophomores, and juniors chose to rush sororities for the past two years. In 2011, a record-high 268 women rushed, the largest rush class in the College’s history. This spring, the number dipped slightly to 250. Alpha Phi International Fraternity Executive Director Linda Kahangi said that the organization submitted a written proposal last year to join the Cambridge-Area Panhellenic Council. Last fall, Kahangi said, the sorority was invited to campus to participate in the final round along with two other sororities. Kahangi said that the organization is thrilled to join the Harvard women’s social scene.

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“Greeks adjust to fall rush ban; Facing the newly implemented ban against freshmen rushing Greek organizations in the fall, some fraternities stopped this fall’s rush altogether.” By Madeline McMahon. Yale Daily News. September 10, 2012. This fall’s new ban on freshman rush has proven difficult to adjust to among fraternities, according to Greek leaders. Greek organizations have had to adjust their rush plans in light of a policy announced last March that prohibits freshmen from joining fraternities and sororities during first semester. While some fraternities — the only Greek organizations that typically hold fall rush — are considering cancelling their rush periods altogether, most are planning to induct a smaller rush group of sophomores and juniors to keep membership at a sustainable level. Fraternity leaders said the specifics of the new policy are still unclear, and that they are waiting to see how the regulation will be implemented during its initial year before making final decisions about how to hold rush. According to the Undergraduate Regulations, all fraternities and sororities holding rush events must submit a “rush plan” to the Yale College Dean’s Office. Out of five Yale fraternities interviewed, only AEPi has submitted a rush plan.

“Hasty Pudding Clubs To Merge Into Single Entity.” By Melanie A. Guzman and Jane Seo. Harvard Crimson. September 13, 2012. The Hasty Pudding Club, Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and the Krokodiloes have merged into a single entity known as The Hasty Pudding Institute of 1770, Andrew L. Farkas ’82 announced to members of the three groups at a meeting Monday evening in Farkas Hall.
Both the Hasty Pudding Theatricals and the Krokodiloes a capella group were founded at the headquarters of the Hasty Pudding Club, a social organization established in 1770. The new conglomerate will now extend Club membership to individuals in both groups. The restructuring will place these three organizations under a single governing body. The new umbrella organization will be directed by Farkas, a former president of the Hasty Pudding Club, and two other alumni. Members of the graduate advisory board of the Hasty Pudding Club and Hasty Pudding Theatricals also announced the change in a letter to alumni of all three groups. In the letter, the board wrote that the intention was to expand the Pudding’s activities to create a tight-knit community of graduates and undergraduates. According to those who attended Monday’s meeting, Farkas said the move also signified a testament to the clubs’ history together and a desire to combine their social and theatrical causes.

“Going Salem on Social Space.” By Felix L.J. Cook. Harvard Crimson. September 14, 2012. “Puritanism,” defined the satirist-scholar Henry Mencken, “is the haunting belief that somewhere someone is happier than you.” We may have abandoned our founders’ captain hats and fetish for witchcraft, but destructive spite is alive and well at Harvard today. We see it in recent tut-tutting as record numbers rush Greek organizations; in the characterization of final clubs as a cross between Mitt Romney’s rumpus room and an Eastern European brothel; in the description of the Crimson Key as “the perfect embodiment of pernicious social elitism” and the Hasty Pudding Club as “a once-secret society premised on ad-hoc partying.” Believe this, and you’d think modern Harvard students are most afraid that somewhere someone is having more fun than they are. Social space is the fixation of this campus. Talked, written and griped over, everyone from the Dems to the Dins must have an on-record grievance about their lack of accommodation. Such a sustained groundswell of dissatisfaction—the naive might have assumed—would have resulted in solutions long ago. Yet, the discussion goes on. Why? Because too often our energy is wasted in pointless invective against what social provision does exist rather than spent in constructive dialogue. If every selective social organization disbanded itself today, nobody’s social life would be improved tomorrow. Instead, for some, quite the opposite would happen. Nonetheless, it is clear that an incurably aggrieved minority would prefer that everyone have nothing than some have something. To achieve this they resort, consciously or unconsciously, to offensively reckless stereotyping. It is not right that by the mere merit of joining a final club or fraternity, our male colleagues should be harangued as racist, homophobic, sexually predatory, or worse. Their female counterparts are patronizingly depicted as clinging to the coat tails of imagined social androcentricity.

MUTUAL BENEFIT ORGANIZATIONS

“Art Club Future Clouded.” By Pia Cotton. Wall Street Journal. September 3, 2012. For the National Arts Club, the embattled Gramercy Park nonprofit, the past 12 months have been both wildly eventful and frustratingly stagnant. The club is set to welcome back its members Tuesday after its annual summer break with a few bragging rights: increased membership, new sources of income and an annual financial statement—a first in decades, the club’s leadership said. But a cloud remains over the venerable 114-year-old club as it faces separate probes by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and the charities bureau of the New York Attorney General’s office, and a lawsuit brought by its former president O. Aldon James, who led the club for 25 years. After Mr. James stepped down in March 2011, the club issued accusations of mishandling funds and real-estate assets and harassing members that would allow them to remove him as a member. Since then, Mr. James, his brother John James, and another member have been fighting to retain their memberships and their club-owned apartments. The controversy will get a fresh airing on Sept. 11 when a state appellate court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on the lawsuit. The outcome could have an impact on other New York clubs’ ability to expel a member. The club, authorities and Mr. James nearly reached a resolution in July. The club agreed to implement reforms, said the club’s attorney Roland Riopelle. But the talks broke down when Mr. James declined to admit to wrongdoing, said club officials and a person close to Mr. James.

“Plotting New Directions.” By Jennifer Maloney. Wall Street Journal. September 7, 2012. About six years ago, Richard Moylan, president of Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, started buying art online. He’d been grappling with the existential quandary facing many cemeteries in New York: When they run out of room for caskets, what will they become? He felt strongly that Green-Wood should be a cultural destination, drawing on the history of those buried on its grounds. So, with future exhibits in mind, he began collecting modestly priced works by some of the more than 300 artists buried at Green-Wood. To date, the cemetery has acquired more than 200 pieces, together worth an estimated $750,000, including pieces by George Catlin, George Bellows, John Frederick Kensett and William Merritt Chase. Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn is among the city cemeteries that are offering themed tours. Other historic New York cemeteries are moving in a similar direction, offering themed tours, hosting musical performances and plumbing their archives for exhibition material—even as they continue to function as active cemeteries. While Green-Wood prepares to raise money for a new visitors center, Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx is building an interactive map linking historic records to each gravesite, and Maple Grove Cemetery in Kew Gardens, Queens, is holding concerts, poetry readings and book signings. Their aim: to become outdoor museums, offering history, art and music under the trees. Green-Wood has been working on its effort for longer than the others, but it’s still too soon to say whether it’s successful, Mr. Moylan said. For the past few years, the number of annual visitors has held steady at about 250,000, though it’s possible, he noted, that the number of family members is declining while the number of tourists and other visitors is increasing. A crucial test of the new model will be a multimillion-dollar capital campaign that the cemetery plans to launch early next year to renovate the 19th-century landmark greenhouse it bought in February for $1.6 million. Green-Wood Cemetery was founded in 1838, just southwest of what is now Prospect Park. Among its 560,000 permanent residents: Leonard Bernstein, Charles Ebbets and Susan McKinney-Steward, who in 1870 became the first African-American woman doctor in the state. The cemetery could end sales of grave plots in as few as five years, Mr. Moylan said. Places for cremated remains in columbariums will likely be available for many years beyond that. But already, sales revenue from burials is declining, Mr. Moylan said. To generate new streams of revenue to support its $14 million operating budget, Mr. Moylan hired a development director for the first time last year and this year made the position full-time.

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“Stanford’s Chi Theta Chi at a crossroads.” By Jason Green. San Jose Mercury News. August 10, 2012. Chi Theta Chi, one of Stanford University’s two remaining private title houses, could fold by the end of the month, ending an era in which residents supplemented their studies with lessons in self-sufficiency. Negotiations for a memorandum of understanding that would restore the house’s autonomy are breaking down, according to a letter Chi Theta Chi Alumni Association board members Abel Allison and Madeleine Douglas sent last week to Greg Boardman, vice provost for student affairs, and Shirley Everett, vice provost for residential and dining services. The university announced in early February it would not renew the ground lease at 576 Alvarado Row, citing concerns ranging from a lapse in the association’s corporate status to life-safety violations. The house is privately owned, but the land beneath it belongs to the university, which has the power to take control of the residence and plans to do so on Sept. 1. Following an outpouring of support for Chi Theta Chi, Boardman and Everett announced in May the university would enter into a restructured agreement with the association. In their letter, Allison and Douglas said it was their understanding the house would be returned once the association had proved its ability to meet the university’s standards for operating a residence. But the terms have shifted in subsequent negotiations with the university’s housing team and it’s no longer clear whether Chi Theta Chi will ever regain its
independence, the letter said.