Red in the Face as Well as the Cross

The last thing the American Red Cross needed was a personal scandal, but it’s got one now. One of the world’s most visible nonprofits yesterday sacked Mark Everson, its president and CEO, after just six months on the job not because of anything performance-related but because he was sleeping with an underling. As the Red Cross’s statement put it:

The Board [of Governors] acted quickly after learning that Mr. Everson engaged in a personal relationship with a subordinate employee. It concluded that the situation reflected poor judgment on Mr. Everson’s part and diminished his ability to lead the organization in the future.

The New York Times noted that “[o]rganizations, whether for-profit or not, rarely describe their reasons for firing an executive as bluntly as the Red Cross did.” My guess is that the Red Cross was desperate to reassure its stakeholders that after getting slammed by Katrina-related criticism, it had righted the ship; the public disclosure of Everson’s personal misstep was a way to demonstrate that the organization was strong despite his lapse in judgment.

We’ll soon find out, won’t we? | 501(c)