Fraud Case Prompts Series of Seminars to Train Board Members in West Virginia

The State of West Virginia is teaming up with a nonprofit leadership-training group to offer a series of free, one-day seminars covering the financial, legal, and ethical responsibilities of charity board members.

The move comes just weeks after the high-profile trial in federal district court of Robert Graham, director of a West Virginia nonprofit center for the elderly, who was accused of embezzling more than $360,000 from his charity.

Last month he was found guilty of improperly taking more than $30,000 in sick leave, although he was cleared of the 38 other fraud and embezzlement counts brought against him. He will be sentenced in December.

The nonprofit First Commitment Corporation, a Wheeling group that trains board members, will hold six trustee-education seminars in October throughout the state.

Betty Ireland, West Virginia’s secretary of state, will speak at the seminars, and the state government will promote them, but they are to be paid for with money from private sources.

Financial Statements

Mr. Graham’s case included accusations that he hoodwinked elderly trustees while using charity funds to support a lavish lifestyle, and it helped focus public attention on the importance of active, educated charity boards.

However, the need for greater trustee training has long been an issue, says John Hazlett, director of First Commitment. Based on surveys his group has performed, he estimates that only 15 percent of trustees at the state’s 7,700 charities know how to read a financial statement. “The average board member in a nonprofit in West Virginia, and I believe elsewhere, is a good person with good intentions but no experience in running an organization,” Mr. Hazlett says. “We’re reaching just the tip of the iceberg.”

However, Mr. Hazlett stops short of suggesting that West Virginia should require some form of training for anyone seeking to serve on a nonprofit board in the state. A bill requiring such training has been introduced in the state legislature but has not passed.

Says Mr. Hazlett: “Such a move is premature and a practical challenge, and wouldn’t be able to get off the ground unless the state put up substantial funding.”