'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Blast from the CNI past

Well, what should drop into our mailbox yesterday but the latest direct-mail fundraising appeal from CNI... And goodness, what an embarrassment to me now, my name is even on the letter as one of its four co-signers.

There was a fairly lengthy history to the drafting of this letter, which might make a good sub-chapter in a memoir or a roman à clef sometime.

While I was at CNI, I did learn much I hadn't known before about direct-mail fundraising. But it's kind of a dying art, these days, isn't it?

By the way, CNI has still not announced my resignation, even though it went into effect on February 10. I wonder whether anyone receiving this fundraising letter, on which my signature appears and which is dated January 30, is of the opinion that I am still the Executive Director at CNI?

I do think they should have announced the resignation before now. The statement I issued about the matter is here.

Of course, a prudent leadership at CNI would have insisted that we negotiate the text of an announcement before the resignation went into effect. But on February 10, after I made one last attempt to negotiate the differences that remained between us (which were not huge), they informed me they were cutting off all further negotiations with me.

So this was one of a number of loose ends they left unresolved at that point. As I said, a prudent leadership might have paid a bit more attention to the details of the transition.