What Example is PRSA Setting for Students in PRSSA?
It’s Time For #ABetterPRSA
NEWS ALERT:
UPDATE POSTED AUGUST 12, 2020 BY MARY BETH WEST:
After the blog below was posted publicly on Aug. 3, 2020, I was indirectly forwarded (not by the author) a letter of admission / apology, written to select executive members of the PRSA National Board, PRSA Foundation Board, and PRSA Staff, by a former PRSA National Chair who is also a current PRSA College of Fellows member, "tak(ing) responsibility for the unethical decision" "to use trademark materials without getting authorization," the letter said.
This stunning, written admission of unethical conduct by a past PRSA National Chair and College of Fellows member may be unprecedented in PRSA.
According to archival news reports, when the now-late Anthony Franco resigned from PRSA's national presidency in 1986, even he "neither admitted nor denied the charges" of insider trading, according to the LA Times.
While this individual has -- by their own admission and by the record of facts assembled -- broken multiple tenets of the PRSA Code of Ethics to which all PRSA members pledge loyalty as a condition of membership and as required in PRSA bylaws for a "Member in Good Standing" (including the Code's "Competition" provision to "protect intellectual property rights in the marketplace"), this past top national board leader of the Society has received NO REPRIMAND NOR ANY MEMBERSHIP REPERCUSSION from the 1) PRSA National Board, 2) PRSA College of Fellows, 3) PRSA Board of Ethics & Professional Standards or 4) PRSA Grievance Committee.
PRSA BYLAWS STATE:
Any member who is not in good standing, as determined by the Board or its designee after appropriate due process, shall not be listed in the Society’s directory and shall not be entitled to enjoy any right or privilege of membership. “Member in good standing” is the status assigned to a member who adheres to the Society’s Bylaws, applicable policies and procedures, and the Code of Ethics...
This lack of any bylaws-mandated repercussion stands, even after this individual admitted in writing to use of another major corporate entity's legally protected commercial trademark, having done so for purposes of raising money under a PRSA / PRSSA banner and for an event in which I and scores of other PRSA professionals were unwittingly and publicly implicated by reason of our personal monetary support of and involvement in the event for altruistic purposes, without our knowledge that promotional materials were procured improperly.
The letter author apparently forwarded the letter of apology to other individuals but chose to exclude me.
Be that as it may, in the grand scheme of things, the most egregious offender of our ethics Code in this matter is not a singular individual ... but instead, it's PRSA's national leadership, as a body politic.
For I myself remain "suspended" and banned / kicked off of the MyPRSA online discussion forum as "discipline" meted out by the PRSA National Board and Staff, with no due-process (itself a bylaws violation) and without my ever having incurred any ethics violations nor even having been accused of ethics violations. Instead, someone (who refuses to be identified) was offended that I wrote a "challenging" idea on MyPRSA Open Forum -- so they had me reported ("Secret Police"-style).
My now months-long questions remain without logical answers, about PRSA's financial-statement discrepancies of some $415,000, stemming from suspicious changes made retroactively by PRSA National in 2020 to the Society's 2018 financial statements.
There has to be #ABetterPRSA than the one continuing to degrade to this level.
ORIGINAL BLOG POST, OF AUG. 3, 2020:
A perfunctory 20-word reply from Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Headquarters to my six-page, deeply concerned resignation letter wasn’t exactly the “collaborative and civil” response I had hoped to receive:
But a 20-word reply was all that was in the offing, after I submitted a detailed resignation letter outlining major, unaddressed concerns as a 10-year volunteer national co-chair and some 25-year financial donor of Champions for PRSSA.
Champions for PRSSA is a group founded by the late Betsy Ann Plank, APR, Fellow PRSA, the widely acknowledged godmother and co-founder of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA), whose parent organization is PRSA, of which Betsy was the first woman to serve as National President.
Betsy was a woman I knew and deeply admired, from the time I met her in 1991 as a PRSSA student myself and after I was elected PRSSA's National Public Relations Director in 1993. My connection with her professional ethos was personal.
The stated intent of Champions for PRSSA is meritorious: to help PR students learn, network and transition successfully as new professionals.
In the early years, there was widespread understanding that Champions for PRSSA (formerly “Friends of PRSSA”) existed primarily to raise money for PRSSA student scholarships. Many PRSA members still think that’s what the group does, from the standpoint of fundraising and where annual member dues are invested.
But now, confusion abounds about how much money is allocated to scholarships versus chapter-award plaques versus expenses for other types of projects, which is unclear.
I was a National Co-Chair of the thing, and I still couldn't figure it out, based on the scant data provided.
In my final years as a Champions Co-Chair, my efforts to receive a clear, written, annual budget for Champions from PRSA staff proved futile.
I was told in one e-mail that “scholarship monies allocated by Champions are only used for any deficit in Plank Scholarship income from the endowment that doesn't meet the three scholarships awarded.”
In the “clear as mud” category, when I inquired for more details about said deficits, I was never allowed access to adequate Plank endowment fund details to gain perspective.
In truth, it became abundantly clear to me that very little money (if any, in any given year) actually goes toward student scholarships.
As I only discovered in recent years, full ownership and oversight of Champions dollars belongs to the PRSA Foundation – a completely separate 501(c)(3) charity apart from PRSA (the parent organization of the PRSSA student group), whose sole mission now is Diversity, although questions persist on that front as well.
To my surprise, I also discovered in 2018 that the Champions Co-Chairs exercise no fiduciary stewardship or control over Champions’ dollars – and that the Foundation retains all rights and powers over Champions funding, even though we Champions Co-Chairs were often asked throughout the years by the PRSSA Executive Director to take votes on allocations of dollars -- thereby lending the impression that we were stewarding the dollars.
On a multitude of occasions from 2018 through 2020, the PRSA Foundation has outright refused to provide clear, consistent or logical answers to me or follow-through on prior commitments to provide financial data and disclosures (and as per the Foundation's own written assurances to the IRS).
A wild goose-chase for answers that began for me in 2018 to figure out exactly how Champions for PRSSA dollars are spent merits deeper scrutiny, and I plan to address concerns in a separate article.
In the past two years, Champions for PRSSA was urged to host a breakfast at the PRSA / PRSSA International Conference.
While I felt enthusiastic about supporting a good student / professional networking opportunity, I later felt suspicious about the extent that this strategy was far more about leveraging Champions to underwrite Conference expenses, due to shortfalls by PRSA staff in not securing adequate sponsor dollars.
In other words, instead of Champions' donor-dues going toward student scholarships in a charitable function, the money was now potentially going to pay the PRSA Conference hotel bill.
My resignation made clear my concerns:
- Appearances of alleged corporate trademark infringement of the General Mills "Wheaties" cereal box (to this day – Aug. 2, 2020 – my concerns over this outrage have never been answered by PRSA staff / leadership)
- Unaccountable power-grabs and fiefdoms perpetuated (in my view) by some in volunteer national leadership positions
- Fiduciary irresponsibility and poor donor relations with financial contributions that are given by donors in good-faith and trust of sound charitable stewardship
- Retaliatory “walls of silence” exacted against ethics-reform whistleblowers…
Amid all of these issues, PRSA staff’s decision not to address my written concerns underscores a serious disregard and disrespect for the names, faces and reputations of nearly 60 dues-paying PRSA members and Champions for PRSSA donors (myself included) emblazoned on what was ultimately revealed as an improperly developed marketing graphic, posted across social media in various iterations in 2018 and 2019.
As a former Champions National Co-Chair and former admin to the Champions Twitter handle and Facebook page, I myself was tweeting and posting the graphic and promoting it prior to the 2019 PRSAICON, because I had no idea the graphic had been developed and released without my knowledge in a way that might run counter to intellectual property law:
Even as unanswered questions abound, so do certain ironies.
Newly passed PRSA bylaws codify, “It is expected that members in good standing will work collaboratively, and civilly, to strengthen the Society…and will not engage in any activities or behaviors that...will bring discredit to the Society, its members, or the profession of public relations or communication."
It seems that PRSA leadership is in violation of its own bylaws, on multiple counts, in "bringing discredit" (potential trademark infringement) and failure to "work collaboratively and civilly" (a six-page letter of member concern that receives a 20-word staff reply and no further explanations or outreach from national leadership, who are copied on the letter).
How should some 60 Champions for PRSSA donors feel about this debacle?
Well, I know how I feel, as a now-former Champions / Foundation donor, who will now seek to support public relations students in other ways through more trusted, transparent avenues (with colleagues, I have made investments in my collegiate alma mater's service to PR students).
I would have far preferred to voice my concerns directly to my PRSA colleagues on the MyPRSA member-only online forum, instead of here on social media, only I can't, due to a new PRSA-mandated gag order exacted against me, after I asked too many impassioned questions about other long-ignored PRSA financial discrepancies.
Following PRSA leadership’s formal banishment of me, without due process, from PRSA’s online member forum on July 24, PRSA released a false statement to PR News (notably with no actual leader or staff member claiming credit for these words):
“…Answers to specific questions and concerns are provided in good faith, truthfully and ethically and with as much clarity and understanding as we can offer. To insinuate we have not been responsive to this member’s concerns is disingenuous…”