Springfield Downtown, Inc.: Woman Over-Board ^☆

The names of the location and the people involved in this case have been disguised; the case is based on a real occurrence.

Abstract

This case deals with a purported fraud perpetrated on a nonprofit organization named Springfield Downtown, Inc. by its Executive Director, Donna Anderson. Under Anderson’s leadership from 2003 to 2010, the downtown area of Springfield, California, had been completely revitalized. Then in 2010, the Board of Directors began to uncover a practice followed by Anderson of converting checks addressed to Springfield Downtown, Inc. for her own private use. After an initial Police Department investigation of the practice, the Board of Directors launched its own internal analysis and discovered at least $415,000 in “questioned check activity.”

The focus of the case is on the ethics of decisions made by Anderson and steps taken by the leadership of Springfield Downtown to assess the implications of the financial fraud using the fraud triangle. Questions are posed to evaluate the actions of Anderson from an ethical perspective and the implications of weaknesses in internal controls in nonprofit organizations for financial fraud.

Citation

Reed, M.M. and Guess, K. (2014), "Springfield Downtown, Inc.: Woman Over-Board ^☆

The names of the location and the people involved in this case have been disguised; the case is based on a real occurrence.

", Research on Professional Responsibility and Ethics in Accounting (Research on Professional Responsibility and Ethics in Accounting, Vol. 17), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 179-190. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1574-0765(2013)000017010