UrbanFuture STL: Donors Beware

A noble mission exploited for personal gain. The story of a St. Louis nonprofit.

A charity in STL whose mission is to serve children from low-income backgrounds, has practices that are highly questionable. The organization and its board are 100% controlled by the CEO and President, their CEO earns more than two times what a CEO should in his position. There is no accountability. The charity is Urban Futures STL. The CEO and President is Frank Van Bree.

A Totalitarian State without Oversight

1. Frank Van Bree is CEO of the organization and board president. Normally organizations have a board of directors that is independent from its paid staff. This separation is made to provide a balance of power.

2. Frank Van Bree is all powerful on the board. On most boards where someone is all powerful it means they carry a lot of sway but in reality their powers are similar to others on the board. On Urban Futures STL’s board, Frank Van Bree literally has different powers than every other board member. Urban Futures STL’s board has 10 directors. But it is a single member board and Frank is that single member. The structure of this single membership is such that Frank cannot be removed as a board member and that he can remove directors from the board at will. He essentially is the organization.

You can see the incorporation of the organization in 1996 where members were established. You can see how the one member votes to make changes for the organization here.

Governance is just a part of an organization. Atypical governance can be fine and justified if the organization serves community interests. It appears this governance structure enables the organization to largely exist to benefit him.

Unreasonable Compensation

1. Frank Van Bree made total compensation of $167,178 in 2013. His base compensation from Urban Futures STL was $144,000. Additionally he receives an estimated $23,178 in other forms of compensation from “Urban Futures or related organizations.”

2. The average wage paid by Urban Futures STL to their employees (including all benefits and taxes) was $14,390. The organization spent $604,397 on compensation and benefits for 42 employees. If you remove Frank from that total, you have an average salary of $10,409. Those employees must work less than full-time, because 10.7k for full-time work is $5.12/hr and does not even meet the minimum wage at that time of $7.25. The minimum wage in STL is now $10/hr.

3. While nonprofits should pay their CEO less than 5% of their total budget and definitely not more than 10%, Frank Van Bree was paid 18.6% of the organization’s total budget. UFSTL’s total operating budget is $898,546.

4. Frank Van Bree, as a percent of budget, is paid 2–6 times as much as any leading nonprofit in STL we looked at.