Staff Reporter
A silent storm brewed inside the San Francisco Parks Alliance as millions in donor funds, meant for neighborhood parks and public projects, quietly disappeared. Now exposed, the once-trusted nonprofit faces serious allegations of financial mismanagement, unpaid dues, and broken trust. As watchdogs close in and voices rise from betrayed community groups, the city’s green dreams lie tangled in numbers, confusion, and secrecy. With over $5.4 million owed and investigations underway, a murky chapter unfolds—one where promises met silence, and funds meant for the public vanished into shadows.
📌 STORY HIGHLIGHTS
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San Francisco Parks Alliance accused of misusing $3.8M in restricted project funds
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Community groups say they were left in the dark about the nonprofit’s collapse
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Alliance currently owes at least $5.4M, according to newly revealed financial records
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Top former officials say they discovered problems only in mid-2024
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City and District Attorneys have launched formal investigations
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Community members describe the loss as “betrayal” and a breach of trust
In a dramatic turn that has shaken trust in San Francisco’s nonprofit infrastructure, the San Francisco Parks Alliance is now facing intense public and legal scrutiny after revelations of financial mismanagement and a failure to alert the very communities it was meant to serve.
Once regarded as a trusted fiscal sponsor for dozens of neighborhood park projects across the city, the Parks Alliance is accused of redirecting millions of dollars earmarked for community efforts to cover unrelated expenses. In doing so, the organization may have left small neighborhood groups—who relied on its services—not only uninformed but also empty-handed.
The fallout reached a new level on Thursday during a marathon four-hour oversight hearing convened by the Board of Supervisors’ Government Audit and Oversight Committee. There, a panel of former Parks Alliance officials—appearing under subpoena—fielded pointed questions about how the organization could lose control over such significant sums of public and private donations.
At the center of the storm is a sharp disconnect between the Parks Alliance’s messaging to major donors and its silence toward smaller partner groups. While large contributors were notified of financial concerns, many grassroots organizations received no word at all—even as funds dried up.
Rick Hutchinson, the Alliance’s former treasurer, admitted that officials deliberately chose not to inform partner organizations when they first realized the depth of their financial trouble.
“We had great fear, which proved to be correct,” Hutchinson said, “that if funders and donors realized the depth of issues that we were still uncovering, they would dry up all fundraising. That’s exactly what happened.”
While community leaders were left guessing, major donors were quietly briefed as the nonprofit scrambled to survive. This strategy may have backfired: as soon as news of the mismanagement became public, the City of San Francisco swiftly severed ties with the organization.
The Alliance, which for years acted as a conduit for private money to fund public parks and community spaces, now finds itself under investigation by both the San Francisco District Attorney and the City Attorney’s Office. At issue is whether restricted donations meant for specific parks or projects were used to cover unrelated costs or administrative shortfalls.
Former CEO Drew Becher, who resigned in early 2025, insisted he was unaware of the problem for most of his tenure. He claimed that the internal financial system did not provide clear reports on restricted versus unrestricted funds until June 2024—by which time, the damage was done.
“In my role as CEO, I did not see any reports that designated restricted or unrestricted funds until after June 2024,” Becher told the committee. “That was when we realized we were in the midst of a financial crisis.”
This raised eyebrows from the supervisors, particularly Supervisor Shamann Walton, who pressed Becher on how a CEO could operate without oversight into the very finances that sustained the organization.
“You expect this board to believe that if this was all the CFO, you had no responsibility?” Walton asked, visibly frustrated. “I am perplexed that anyone would be able to be in the CEO position for as long as you were and have no knowledge of this financial situation.”
The Alliance’s most recent CEO, Robert Ogilvie—who took over in February 2025 after Becher stepped down—confirmed that the Alliance currently owes at least $5.4 million to its fiscal partners. The figure was presented by Walton in the form of an internal balance sheet and quickly acknowledged by Ogilvie.
“That number is accurate, and possibly conservative,” Ogilvie noted. “It is at least that amount.”
While Ogilvie acknowledged he joined with full awareness of the financial crisis, his predecessors were less clear on who knew what, and when. Hutchinson and Becher repeatedly cited internal confusion, disorganization, and problems with former Chief Financial Officer Justin Probert, who was fired in February 2024—not for financial misconduct, they insisted, but for “management style” issues.
Yet, Becher also revealed that Probert never even accessed the nonprofit’s accounting software during his tenure as CFO—a red flag that was not acted upon until the organization was in freefall.
Still, the fallout has had real consequences for dozens of community-led projects. Elaine Forbes, Director of the San Francisco Port, testified that the Parks Alliance left her department nearly $2 million short on a key redevelopment project at Crane Cove.
“We were never informed of the financial crisis,” Forbes said. “We’re left holding the bag.”
During public comment, representatives from community groups across the city echoed similar frustrations, saying they had been chasing missing funds for months—sometimes years—without getting answers.
“We’ve lost $100,000 that was donated by residents over the past decades,” said Leslie Wong of the Buena Vista Neighborhood Association. “This is like depositing $100,000 in a bank then the bank saying they don’t have it anymore.”
The Parks Alliance’s original model was designed to benefit small grassroots organizations, which often don’t have nonprofit status and rely on fiscal sponsors to receive tax-deductible donations. The Alliance collected a small fee for this service and was supposed to pass the rest of the funds to the intended recipients.
But as Thursday’s hearing made clear, those transfers may not have happened as intended—particularly during the Alliance’s final year.
While Hutchinson stated that all funds that entered the Parks Alliance after June 1, 2024, were repaid to the appropriate organizations, he could not name any specific group that had received its money.
“There was concern that … being very public about what was going on would speed up the collapse of the organization,” Ogilvie said when asked why the Alliance chose silence over transparency.
The Government Audit and Oversight Committee will continue its investigation into the Alliance’s finances and leadership failures. For many of the city’s community groups, however, the damage is already done—both in lost funds and lost trust.
As investigations deepen and testimonies grow sharper, the downfall of the San Francisco Parks Alliance signals more than a financial failure—it reflects a rupture in accountability, transparency, and community trust. What was once a reliable bridge between donors and neighborhood dreams now stands as a cautionary tale of silence, mismanagement, and broken systems. With millions still unaccounted for and legal probes underway, the final chapter is yet to be written—but the damage, for many local groups, is already deeply felt and dangerously real.
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