San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu announced Thursday that his office had started the process to debar and immediately suspend Collective Impact, a Bay Area nonprofit that has been under scrutiny due to its abuse of city grants.
The debarment means the nonprofit would be stripped of the privilege to bid on or receive new city contracts or grants.
Collective Impact received city grant funding for vulnerable youth and families in San Francisco. A continuing joint audit and investigation by the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office and the Controller’s Office, however, uncovered that Collective Impact had used city funding on lavish gifts to former San Francisco Human Rights Commission (HRC) Director Sheryl Davis, thus aiding and abetting Davis in violating conflict of interest laws.
Instead of using received funds on at-risk youth and families, Collective Impact funneled tens of thousands of dollars into Davis’s personal business ventures, first-class travel, and even her son’s education at UCLA.
Davis had worked as executive director of Collective Impact from 2011 through 2016. She shares a home and car with the nonprofit’s executive director, James Spingola.
“Collective Impact has received more than $27 million in City grants since 2021 to provide support to our City’s most vulnerable,” said Chiu. “Our communities deserve these resources, and we cannot allow public monies to be diverted for personal benefit and self-promotion. All City employees have a responsibility to ensure that public funding is used as intended to deliver high-quality public services.”
The Epoch Times reached out to Davis and Collective Impact for comment but has not received a response.
The City Attorney’s Office said those funds were earmarked to positively impact communities, not enrich middlemen.
“Misusing grant funds for individual gain—or for the benefit of a select few—doesn’t just take away resources from the people in need,” said Controller Greg Wagner. “It erodes the confidence of those doing important work and unfairly casts a shadow on the organizations that are genuinely making every dollar count. Our residents deserve accountability.”
Davis failed to disclose that she was living with Spingola despite the couple signing seven agreements between HRC and Collective Impact that awarded millions of dollars to the nonprofit in a clear conflict of interest.
Collective Impact spent public money to promote Davis’s personal business ventures and pay for gifts from Collective Impact to Davis including marketing expenses for Davis’s book, talent booking for her podcast, first-class airfare to promote her book and podcast, as well as luxury accommodations.
Between 2022 and 2024, Collective Impact gifted thousands of dollars to Davis and two other HRC employees.
“Davis nonetheless repeatedly made decisions that benefited Collective Impact, including signing grant agreements and approving disbursements of grant funds,” reads the city attorney’s office press release.
Moreover, Collective Impact submitted improper claims for reimbursement from the city, including for more than $19,000 to pay tuition for Davis’s son to attend graduate school at UCLA.
Collective Impact invoiced the city for a $49,999.99 payment for Davis, Spingola, and others to attend a 2023 conference in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, despite the grant explicitly excluding funding for travel and conference expenses.
The city attorney’s office additionally found that Collective Impact spent more than $75,000 in city funds in 2022 and 2023 on stipends to its own employees, including its executive director and CFO, in addition to no fewer than five city employees. The nonprofit invoiced the city for the stipends, despite them being illegal payments, as performance bonuses are also prohibited.
Davis resigned from the city in September 2024. HRC and the Office of Economic and Workforce Development ultimately terminated contracts with Collective Impact.
The Controller’s City Performance Unit put Collective Impact on Tier 3 monitoring status, the highest risk category for nonprofit grantees, flagging the nonprofit for severe fiscal or programmatic concerns.
The city attorney’s office describes its grounds for debarment of Collective Impact’s in its press release, alleging that Collective Impact violated the Municipal Code through gifts to HRC employees, and that it bribed Davis and aided and abetted Davis’s conflicts of interest in violation of the Campaign and Governmental Conduct Code.
Moreover, Collective Impact submitted a false claim for ineligible conference expenses, invoiced payments for ineligible expenses in violation of grant terms, and unlawfully paid city employees in violation of the city’s ethics laws in the Campaign and Governmental Conduct Code.
Audits of HRC’s non-contract payments, as well as all grants to Collective Impact from four city departments, remain ongoing.
