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Nonprofits urged to file complaint against defunct umbrella foundation

Jeremy M. Lazarus | 8/25/2022, 6 p.m.
Richmond City Councilwoman Stephanie A. Lynch is encouraging organizations whose funds disappeared after the collapse of the Enrichmond Foundation to ...

Richmond City Councilwoman Stephanie A. Lynch is encouraging organizations whose funds disappeared after the collapse of the Enrichmond Foundation to file a complaint with the Richmond Police Department.

The 5th District councilwoman who chairs the Education and Human Services Committee said that is the only way that a criminal probe could take place.

Ms. Lynch

Ms. Lynch

Ms. Lynch said the city government had stopped contributing to the foundation two years ago, and she has been advised that the city’s stake is insufficient to involve the commonwealth’s attorney’s office or investigators.

Estimates are that more than $110,000 that Enrichmond held for dozens of groups that support city parks and recreation programs is missing, and information has been impossible for groups to get about their missing funds.

The foundation’s status is unclear. What remained of the foundation’s board in late June had voted to wind down operations, but the attorney hired to handle the work, Kerry Hutcherson, has quit.

Mr. Hutcherson said that he has returned the Enrichmond files.

There has been no indication that the foundation as it remains has the financial ability to hire another attorney or whether there are any board members left to even vote to authorize the orderly dissolution of remaining assets.

J. David Young was serving as board chair when the foundation collapse. Mr. Young, who also is executive director of the Friends Association for Children, has remained mum about the foundation, the status of the board and its ability to file for bankruptcy.

Enrichmond, founded in the early 1990s, served as an umbrella nonprofit for groups that sought to benefit parks and other operations and also owned various properties.

Among the most prominent groups are the historic East End and Evergreen cemeteries that sit on the border between Richmond and Henrico County across from Oakwood Cemetery in the East End.

The foundation had taken over those largely untended Black burial grounds and has now left them abandoned again.