Campbell Center finances

The Campbell Center for Historic Preservation is in severe financial
hardship and needs your help in investigating what happened to their
money. Apparently, the board has spent at least half the endowment,
mortgaged the Director's house, spent two bequests, taken out large
bank loans, and still owes significant amounts of money to vendors.
Kathy Cyr, the Program Director, has left out of disgust.

The Attorney General of Illinois can investigate the board's
activities, if enough people request that they do so. Otherwise, the
Attorney General will allow the board to spend the rest of the
endowment so that they are out of debt and then the organization
will be allowed to die.

Please join us in a fight to save the Campbell Center for future
museum and preservation colleagues. Ask that the Attorney General
investigate the finances, determine whether expenditures were
appropriate and met the mission, and determine whether the board has
violated their fiduciary duty. Many of the instructors believe that
they have. We have asked that the Attorney General remove the
current board of directors and replace it with Campbell Center
stakeholders. Please join us in this request.

Below is a letter that you can use a template to send to the
Illinois Attorney General, Ms. Lisa Madigan.

    Lisa Madigan
    Illinois Attorney General
    Attn: Charitable Trust Division

    Mathew Shapiro, Assistant Attorney General
    1200 West Randolph Street
    Chicago, IL 60601
    312-814-3000
    Fax: 312-814-2596
    mshapiro [at] atg__state__il__us

    Re: Board of Directors of the Campbell Center for Historic
       Preservation

    Studies in Mt. Carroll, Illinois

    Dear Ms. Madigan, Illinois Attorney General

    I am writing because I am deeply concerned about the actions of
    the Campbell Center for Historic Preservation's Board of
    Directors in recent years. They have:

    *   Used restricted funds for unrestricted purposes
    *   Taken on a redevelopment project that is not part of their
        chartered mission
    *   Threatened the whole organization by incurring large debts
    *   Mortgaged part of the Campbell Center property
    *   Violated their fiduciary duty

    The current board has evinced no interest in, or understanding
    of, the chartered mission--to provide preservation training to
    an international audience. They have been pursuing community
    redevelopment projects --which would benefit the city of Mt.
    Carroll more than the Campbell Center for Historic Preservation.

    I ask that you dissolve the board, which is made up primarily of
    Mt. Carroll citizens who are not involved with museums or
    historic preservation activities, and reform it with
    representatives from the community that the Campbell Center for
    Historic Preservation serves. I also ask that you take steps to
    make the current board of directors personally responsible for
    the debt that they incurred in the name of the Center without
    receiving permission from the Center's stakeholders--the
    teachers, students and funders.

    The Campbell Center for Historic Preservation Studies has a
    fabulous, international reputation, one of almost mythical
    proportions. The courses it provides are considered the best
    available in the museum, historic preservation and conservation
    fields. This unique institution, the only one of its kind in the
    world, must continue. It is sorely needed. The board of
    directors' active destruction of a valuable international
    resource must be stopped.

    Yours sincerely,
    (your name and institutional affiliation)


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 21:34
               Distributed: Wednesday, December 12, 2007
                       Message Id: cdl-21-34-001
                                  ***