The nonprofit Center for Self-Sufficiency closed in September as federal investigators audited its use of $750,000 in government funding.
The organization focused on supporting residents reentering society from the criminal justice system and strengthening families. Services included financial and employment coaching, parenting support and restorative justice.
The center was based for years out of the Community Advocates headquarters at 728 N. James Lovell St. before moving to the YWCA building on King Drive in May.
The government audit found that the use of $749,000 of the federal funds was unsupported by documentation.
“It’s kind of shocking because it’s portrayed as if there was no information that backed up spending, and that definitely wasn’t the case,” said Maudwella Kirkendoll, chief operating officer of Community Advocates and former vice president of the Center for Self-Sufficiency’s board of directors.
Despite the audit, two former employees who were working at the center when it closed said the main reason the organization dissolved was a gradual dwindling of funding opportunities.
Kirkendoll agreed.
“The funding,” Kirkendoll said, “was just drying up.”
The employees asked to remain anonymous to avoid any negative impacts to future work opportunities.
The federal audit
The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs oversees Second Chance Act grants, which are generally meant to support people as they reintegrate after incarceration and help reduce recidivism.
The Center for Self-Sufficiency was awarded nearly $750,000 to provide case management and employment services to men returning to Milwaukee after incarceration from 2021 to 2024, its third time receiving the grant.
The office approved an extension to continue the grant with no additional funding until September.
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The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General launched an audit in May into the center’s program. The office conducted a site visit, interviewed staff, reviewed policy and procedures and requested accounting and financial records.
The audit, which was released in September, indicated the Center for Self-Sufficiency could not demonstrate compliance with certain grant requirements because it did not provide the accounting documentation needed to show how funds were spent to support its program performance.
“While we determined that a majority of (Center for Self-Sufficiency’s) policies aligned with important conditions of the laws, regulations, guidelines, and terms and conditions applicable to the award, we found critical issues with (Center for Self-Sufficiency’s) grant financial management,” the report reads.
The audit also found the grant’s financial activity was mixed together with activity from other sources in the organization’s accounting records for most of the time frame that was examined.
The report recommended that the Office of Justice Programs review and “remedy” the spending, find a better use for the remaining $1,000 that was not used and make sure the Center for Self-Sufficiency has proper systems in place to track how it spends grant money before receiving any future funding.
According to the report, the center notified the office that it was considering dissolving in July and that its board ultimately voted to close the organization by Sept. 30, 2025.
What former staff and board member are saying
Kirkendoll and the two former employees said the Center for Self-Sufficiency did not misallocate any funds.
It could verify grant program expenses with receipts and paper and computer records, but it had a past accounting system that was not clear, they said.
When Dafi Dyer became president and CEO of the Center for Self-Sufficiency in late 2022, she and the board implemented a review of the center’s outside accounting firm after noticing some problems and switched to a new accounting firm and system in mid-2023, according to Kirkendoll.
During the audit, the center provided the records from its updated system, as well as the records from the previous accountant, according to Kirkendoll and the former employees.
“So all that stuff is substantiated, it was there, it just wasn’t in the format that they would have expected from the accounting firm,” Kirkendoll said.
The audit also reported that the center did not complete single audits for 2021, 2022 and 2023.
The Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs did not respond to questions about the services and documentation provided by the Center for Self-Sufficiency.
The Office of the Inspector General did not attempt to collect the spent money, according to the former employees and Kirkendoll.
Shutting down
Kirkendoll said the board was having conversations with the center’s leadership about potentially dissolving the organization in the first quarter of 2025.
As limited-term grants ended, according to Kirkendoll and former employees, leadership and the board were not sure if the organization would be able to receive enough funding from other grants to support its operations.
“When we dug deeper, it just got to a point where, as a board, we decided having even one or two grants remaining just didn’t make sense,” he said.
The center moved out of the Lovell Street building into the YWCA Southeast Wisconsin building at 1915 N. Martin Luther King Drive in May.
The Center for Self-Sufficiency made efforts to downsize by reducing employee hours and salaries, according to a former employee. It cut its staff of 10 in half in June.
The organization’s total public support dropped from $3.46 million in 2015 to $2.2 million in 2019 to $1.3 million in 2023, according to the center’s tax filings.
It also did not have much private funding – in 2023, it reported $55,054 in other gifts or contributions.
Kirkendoll said concerns about grant funding are not specific to the Center for Self-Sufficiency.
“Over the course of the last five-plus years, I think this funding overall for organizations that are doing the work has decreased substantially,” he said.
Impact
Both former employees said the center had a great working environment and a staff dedicated to the people they served.
One former employee said success stories from past clients, such as staying at a job for two years or having relationships with their children or families that they couldn’t maintain before, might not be reflected in data reports but can make a big difference in a person’s life.
Another former employee said they gave their contact information to the final participants in the reentry program and still tries to connect them with other resources.
“They did great work, and this is the nature of nonprofits,” Kirkendoll said. “It’s, of course, always my hope that the work continues, whether it be with another organization, because there’s definitely a need in the community.”
Meredith Melland is the neighborhoods reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
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