Buried on an inside pages of Monday’s New York Times is an article on Life After the Ford Foundation (LAFF).

It is an alumni network of former Ford staffers; 350 – 400 people are involved. It sounds like a cute and harmless idea, but is anything truly innocent these days?

Apparently, the Foundation is not very happy with LAFF, perhaps seeing it as a group of disaffected former employees.

LAFF leaders deny this, saying they just like each other, shared a lot of important experiences while at Ford, and want to stay in touch.

I guess we’ll see. The upcoming retirement of Ford’s President Susan V. Berresford gives LAFF an opportunity to recruit someone who can bridge those employee/former employee differences.

Ford is not alone. Retirees of Mott and the Asia Foundation are starting similar groups.

Pretty soon we’ll need a National Association of Former Philanthropoids.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 at 12:44 pm and is filed under Foundation effectiveness, Nonprofit Sector. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.