Rape survivors relied on BRAVE Bay Area. Whistleblower documents claim it was destroyed from within

For over 5 a long time, BRAVE Bay Space has been the East Bay’s main useful resource for survivors of sexual assault.

Based in 1971, Bay Space Ladies In opposition to Rape, or BAWAR, was the nation’s first rape disaster middle. For a few years, the group has operated a bilingual hotline and a sexual assault response crew, whose members accompany individuals who have been sexually assaulted once they arrive at Highland Hospital for a sexual assault proof examination, once they report the assault to the police, or once they go to courtroom to testify in opposition to their abuser. The $1.7 million nonprofit — which rebranded as BRAVE simply final yr — additionally trains advocates, well being care professionals, law enforcement officials, attorneys, and others who work immediately with survivors of sexual assault and gender-based violence.

In July 2020, the group introduced that its govt director, Sarai Crain, was leaving her management position after 15 years with the group to affix the town of Oakland’s Division of Violence Prevention. Leah Kimble-Worth, a licensed marriage and household therapist and longtime advocate for survivors of gender-based violence, was named interim govt director, a job that grew to become everlasting in January 2022.

On the time Kimble-Worth joined BRAVE, the nonprofit was in a rebuilding part, searching for to revive group belief after the East Bay Express reported {that a} BRAVE worker had exploited the mom of a teenage consumer for intercourse. A number of workers instructed The Oaklandside they felt energized by Kimble-Worth’s imaginative and prescient to develop the group and enhance workers’ work-life stability.

However they stated they quickly grew to become disillusioned.

Six former and present workers instructed The Oaklandside that over the previous 5 years, Kimble-Worth initiated a number of rounds of layoffs, decreasing the crew to a skeleton crew that lacked the capability to offer the standard assist that sexual assault survivors wanted and deserved. This included a whole bunch of disaster hotline calls going unanswered, in response to name logs obtained by The Oaklandside. 4 of the staff alleged that after they spoke out in opposition to Kimble-Worth’s choices, she retaliated in opposition to them.

The employees unionized in 2023, however the union and BRAVE administration have but to finalize a contract, regardless of a number of bargaining classes, in response to the union.

One former worker, Jenn Marshall, who labored at BRAVE from 2017 to 2024, made way more critical claims in a collection of whistleblower complaints to the group’s board of administrators and two authorities businesses. Within the complaints, Marshall accused Kimble-Worth of deceptive funders concerning the variety of purchasers BRAVE was serving and of ordering them to falsify grant reviews, ensuing within the lack of a whole bunch of 1000’s of {dollars} in funding from Oakland’s Department of Violence Prevention and the governor’s Office of Emergency Services, referred to as Cal OES.

Holly Joshi, chief of the Division of Violence Prevention, confirmed to The Oaklandside {that a} grant earmarked for BRAVE was terminated final yr after her crew audited the group. 

Cal OES spokesperson Ed Chapuis instructed us the company wouldn’t touch upon the allegation that funders have been misled, however he confirmed that BRAVE had obtained two grants from the company, totaling $807,495, in fiscal yr 2024.

On Might 5, Kimble-Worth and the newly named chair of BRAVE’s board of administrators, Karen Schoonmaker, quietly announced in a weblog put up on the nonprofit’s web site that it could completely shut on the finish of September, citing “important shifts in federal authorities priorities and funding approaches.” Nonetheless, Marshall and three different former and present BRAVE workers instructed The Oaklandside that they consider Kimble-Worth and the board are shutting down the group in an try to hide monetary improprieties.

The Oaklandside contacted Kimble-Worth a number of occasions to request an interview for this story. She instructed us that BRAVE is “not taking part in media interviews right now” and referred us to a press release that the board issued after a recent East Bay Times story detailed the group’s sluggish implosion. We additionally despatched Kimble-Worth an electronic mail describing the allegations made by present and former BRAVE staffers, however she didn’t reply.

Schoonmaker didn’t reply to our requests for an interview.

“The BRAVE Bay Space Board of Administrators responds to latest media protection that, whereas elevating necessary questions on our closure, accommodates inaccuracies and lacks essential context concerning the financial realities going through grant-funded organizations nationwide,” the assertion learn.

“Our closure is basically an financial determination pushed by systemic underfunding,” the board wrote. “With greater than 90% of our price range depending on federal and state grants, we now have confronted delayed payouts that severely impacted money movement.”

Nonetheless, the nonprofit’s tax filings don’t seem to point a decline in funding. As an alternative, public funding for BRAVE considerably elevated from $751,213 in 2019 to greater than $1.5 million in 2023. (Studies protecting 2024 and the primary half of 2025 haven’t been filed publicly but.)

“Survivors in Alameda County have entry to 2 different rape disaster facilities and over 50 disaster hotlines throughout California,” the board wrote in its response to media protection. “Our closure creates area for well-resourced organizations to increase capability moderately than leaving survivors with out choices.”

As soon as BRAVE shuts its doorways subsequent month, sexual assault survivors in Alameda County will solely have a few choices left for assist: Tri-Valley Haven — which primarily serves the San Ramon, Livermore, and Amador Valley areas — and a sexual assault response and recovery team at Oakland’s Highland Hospital.

The Oaklandside reached out to all 4 members of BRAVE’s board of administrators listed on the group’s most up-to-date charitable filings: Kimble-Worth, Shelitha Campbell, Abby Larson, and Maureen Benson. Larson instructed The Oaklandside that she left the board in June 2023. Benson declined an interview however stated she left the board in October 2023.

One former board member, who requested to not be named as a result of danger {of professional} repercussions, disagreed with the board’s reassurances, saying that with out BRAVE, there aren’t sufficient sources within the East Bay to assist rape survivors in any respect hours of the day.

Martina Broussard, a former consumer advocate at BRAVE, stated that BRAVE is failing numerous survivors who’ve relied on its providers to navigate their darkest moments.

Repeated restructuring and layoffs spark confusion

In August 2020 — only one month into her tenure as interim govt director — Kimble-Worth introduced a significant restructuring of the group, which then had round two dozen workers, and laid off 4 staffers, in response to inside paperwork obtained by The Oaklandside.

Marshall described the announcement as “surprising,” noting that reorganizations and layoffs had been atypical earlier than Kimble-Worth joined the crew. However Kimble-Worth reassured workers that there have been no additional layoffs deliberate “for the foreseeable future,” in response to a PowerPoint presentation she despatched to employees.

“If there are any staffing modifications that happen from this level ahead, which we don’t anticipate, they are going to be based mostly on new efficiency or conduct points and/or new funding restrictions/deficits,” Kimble-Worth wrote within the PowerPoint, which The Oaklandside reviewed.

However in response to a present staffer, who requested to not be named, fearing retaliation, Kimble-Worth has restructured the group repeatedly since then. The worker stated the frequent reorganizing resulted in “chaos” contained in the group.

At the least three extra rounds of layoffs adopted, Marshall instructed The Oaklandside. “Every time, there have been no less than three to 4 individuals who have been terminated, and with that, an entire restructuring of the whole company on the identical time,” they stated.

In December 2021, Kimble-Worth once more stunned employees when she applied a brand new coverage decreasing the hours of BRAVE’s disaster hotline. Run by a mixture of volunteers and paid employees, the hotline had been working 24 hours a day, seven days per week, for many years; it could now be staffed solely from 9 a.m. to six p.m.

In an inside electronic mail obtained by The Oaklandside, dated Nov. 30, 2021, Kimble-Worth instructed employees that BRAVE would notify the general public that “resulting from a 250% enhance in demand for assist, a 50% lower in lively volunteers, heightened consideration to burnout prevention, in addition to prioritizing a ‘complete particular person office,’ there could also be occasions when we aren’t capable of reply the cellphone with the identical frequency.”

Kimble-Worth wrote that just about all 24/7 hotlines “have a disclaimer or different choice.” Her electronic mail didn’t present any alternate options for individuals in disaster.

Marshall, Broussard, and one other former worker instructed The Oaklandside that Kimble-Worth continued to tell funders, associate organizations, and the general public that BRAVE’s hotline was working 24/7. The present worker confirmed their accounts.

That very same month, for the primary time within the group’s historical past, Kimble-Worth instituted a 72-hour “don’t disturb” interval for advocates in the course of the holidays, which means no employees have been assigned to reply the hotline or accompany survivors throughout sexual assault proof exams from Dec. 28 to 31, in response to inside emails reviewed by The Oaklandside. (Different rape disaster facilities dedicate special attention to supporting survivors in the course of the vacation season.) Later that December, she laid off two extra workers, citing monetary hardship.

In June 2022, Kimble-Worth laid off three extra staffers, in response to one worker’s contemporaneous handwritten notes. 4 months later, the worker wrote, Kimble-Worth introduced one other restructuring of the group — this time with out layoffs. In August 2023, she reorganized BRAVE as soon as once more and laid off 4 workers, in response to inside emails obtained by The Oaklandside.

The present staffer and three former workers stated the frequent reorganizations and excessive turnover made it tougher to get acquainted with their crew and really feel safe of their jobs.

“When you’ve that many transferring items, it’s nearly such as you’re in a ship that’s filling with water, and also you’re making an attempt to flush the water out whilst you patch the holes,” Marshall stated. “I believe that’s what it felt like for everyone — our volunteers, our employees, and our survivors.”

Since Kimble-Worth started her tenure, what was a crew of roughly 25 workers in 2020 has dwindled to only seven, in response to the present worker.

A declare that grant reviews have been falsified

In February 2024, Marshall reached a breaking level and submitted a whistleblower grievance to the nonprofit’s board of administrators. In that Feb. 15 electronic mail, obtained by The Oaklandside, Marshall claimed that Kimble-Worth instructed them to misrepresent BRAVE’s hotline numbers to funders.

Marshall had begun at BRAVE as an advocate on the sexual assault response crew, however by 2024, that they had been promoted to director of applications. In that position, Marshall was answerable for submitting quarterly reviews to funders, with Kimble-Worth’s approval. These reviews detailed quite a lot of deliverables, together with the variety of calls the hotline obtained, the variety of calls that employees and volunteers picked up, and the variety of missed calls.

Within the Feb. 15 electronic mail to the board, Marshall wrote that Kimble-Worth instructed funders that the quantity of people that referred to as BRAVE’s hotline — about 1,000 1 / 4 — was the variety of calls picked up by a counselor. In truth, Marshall instructed The Oaklandside that the variety of callers who spoke to employees or volunteers “was really about 250 of that 1,000.”

“That is additionally falsifying and misrepresenting our information,” Marshall wrote of their electronic mail to the board. “Leah does the ultimate checks on any grant submissions and submits them beneath my title to funders, so I felt like I needed to adjust to this.”

Marshall instructed The Oaklandside that they initially pushed again on Kimble-Worth’s directives, explaining that Crain, the earlier govt director, taught them tips on how to fill out the quarterly reviews. However Marshall stated that Kimble-Worth insisted that they had been reporting the hotline numbers incorrectly.

“I used to be like, ‘Effectively, possibly I was doing it improper,’” Marshall stated. “In BAWAR’s historical past, there haven’t been any operations manuals or instruments to be taught your job. You realized from the individuals round you.”

Crain denied an interview request, releasing a short assertion to The Oaklandside that learn partly, “The closure of Bay Space Ladies In opposition to Rape (BAWAR) is a profound loss for Alameda County and for the whole group of survivors, advocates, college students, group companions, and repair suppliers who’ve lengthy acknowledged it as a vital a part of our security internet.”

Name logs reviewed by The Oaklandside present that in July 2023, there have been no employees or volunteers to reply BRAVE’s hotline for a 50-hour stretch, leading to 29 missed calls. Throughout a separate 24-hour interval that month, 137 calls went unanswered. It’s unknown if any of these have been repeat calls, as BRAVE encrypts caller information.

Campbell, who was listed as chair of the group’s board of administrators in BRAVE’s 2023 and 2024 charitable filings, notified Marshall by electronic mail that the board was taking their grievance significantly and had launched an investigation. A number of months later, Marshall adopted up and recalled being instructed by Campbell that the board wouldn’t present an replace, citing a third-party investigation.

Campbell didn’t reply to a number of calls and emails requesting an interview. She additionally didn’t reply to The Oaklandside’s request for the findings from the third-party investigation.

Annoyed, Marshall stated they forwarded their whistleblower grievance to the Family Violence Law Center, an Oakland-based nonprofit that gives authorized providers to survivors of home violence and sexual assault, and to the town’s Division of Violence Prevention, or DVP, on June 18, 2024.

The DVP had awarded a $5.2 million, two-year grant to the Household Violence Legislation Heart to assist survivors of gender-based violence, protecting the interval from October 2023 by means of September 2025. City records show that BRAVE, then nonetheless referred to as BAWAR, was listed as a “subgrantee” and was set to obtain $850,000 over the course of the grant to assist its 24-hour hotline and different providers.

In an interview with The Oaklandside, DVP Chief Holly Joshi confirmed her division and the Household Violence Legislation Heart obtained an nameless grievance in June 2024 “relating to BAWAR’s fiscal and programmatic practices.”

The Household Violence Legislation Heart didn’t reply to calls and emails requesting an interview.

Joshi stated the whistleblower grievance prompted an audit of BRAVE’s monetary and programmatic data. The DVP found that between July 2023 and March 2024, 69% to 80% of calls to the hotline had gone unanswered. The audit additionally revealed that BRAVE’s reported employees hours, bills, and repair information “didn’t match back-up documentation.”

The DVP, Joshi added, additionally found that BRAVE had a “delinquent standing” with the state Registry of Charitable Trusts, a division of the California Legal professional Common’s Workplace that oversees charitable organizations. A nonprofit is deemed “delinquent” if it fails to submit full reviews for every fiscal yr, in response to the attorney general’s website.

In an electronic mail to The Oaklandside, Joshi confirmed that the Household Violence Legislation Heart “terminated their subgrantee relationship with BAWAR” in October 2024, ending the town’s funding of the nonprofit’s providers. She stated BRAVE obtained not one of the $850,000 it was initially imagined to obtain beneath the grant.

Marshall additionally shared their grievance with a state company, the governor’s Workplace of Emergency Providers, one other public sector company that had funded BRAVE. In line with the grievance, which The Oaklandside obtained, Marshall wrote that Kimble-Worth had instructed them to “falsify” BRAVE’s hotline numbers on quarterly grant reviews to Cal OES. Marshall instructed The Oaklandside that this occurred for a yr and a half.

Emails reviewed by The Oaklandside present that Cal OES opened an investigation into Marshall’s grievance in June 2024. Marshall stated they haven’t heard from the company about its findings.

Chapuis, the Cal OES spokesperson, declined to touch upon the investigation however stated that since BRAVE knowledgeable Cal OES that it could be closing on the finish of September, the nonprofit won’t obtain any funds for fiscal yr 2025.

The ordeal, Marshall stated, was deeply upsetting, shattering their sense of integrity.

“Leaders of this company are supposed to hold forth this mission and our moral issues,” they stated. “They usually’re those doing essentially the most unethical stuff.”

Former workers declare anti-union retaliation

In November 2023, after mounting frustration over Kimble-Worth’s management, a supermajority of BRAVE’s shrunken roster of workers determined to kind a union, Workers United for Survivor Justice, or WUSJ, affiliated with Communications Staff of America, Native 9415. (The Cityside Guild, which covers some reporters at The Oaklandside, is affiliated with a distinct CWA native.)

In a letter addressed to Kimble-Worth and obtained by The Oaklandside, workers wrote that they wished a contract that “codifies and builds on current insurance policies” and a office “freed from worry of retaliation.” They requested that Kimble-Worth voluntarily acknowledge the union so they may start contract negotiations.

Two employees members who supported the union, who requested to not be named, fearing skilled repercussions, instructed The Oaklandside that two days later, Kimble-Worth used BRAVE’s human sources software program to assign particular person objectives to all seven staffers who could be members of the bargaining unit, retroactive to October 2023. It was the primary and solely time Kimble-Worth had assigned objectives this manner, each stated.

“We felt this was retaliatory based mostly on timing with our recognition letter,” stated one in all them, the staffer who has been concerned within the hotline and different assist providers.

The worker added that the union is contemplating submitting an unfair labor observe cost with the Nationwide Labor Relations Board.

A couple of week after WUSJ despatched its letter searching for recognition, Kimble-Worth responded in a letter with an inventory of 19 questions on how the union would work, which The Oaklandside has reviewed.

“How has the latest conspicuous development of nonprofits newly-led by Black ladies deciding to unionize been addressed inside the membership?” Kimble-Worth wrote. “Is CWA holding an intersectional and anti-racist lens when inspecting the anti-black and anti-femme legacies of union organizing?”

The 2 union supporters every stated they interpreted this language as an accusation that the organizers have been participating in anti-Black racism.

“She actually took it as a private assault,” Marshall stated of the organizing drive. “She stated it was anti-Black for them to kind a union, that it was taking place to numerous Black EDs [executive directors], and that wasn’t a coincidence.”

CWA is a Black-led union, and a former BRAVE worker instructed The Oaklandside that the individuals who could be members of the bargaining unit have been “largely ladies of colour and different Black ladies.”

In March 2024, Kimble-Worth voluntarily acknowledged the union.

Inner emails reveal that the next month, Kimble-Worth reassigned 4 union members to lesser roles inside the group. The present staffer stated that Kimble-Worth “demoted” them, decreasing their obligations.

“I believe I used to be retaliated in opposition to due to our unionizing,” the worker stated.

Two former BRAVE employees instructed The Oaklandside that they consider Kimble-Worth retaliated in opposition to them for different causes.

Martina Broussard joined the group in 2021 as an advocate with the sexual assault response crew, or SART, which entailed accompanying survivors to Highland Hospital, the police station, or courtroom. Throughout a kind of hospital visits in March 2022, a “mixture of errors” resulted in “some of the chaotic, terrible SARTs of my life,” Broussard instructed The Oaklandside.

Within the months that preceded the incident, Broussard stated she had clashed with Kimble-Worth a number of occasions over the chief director’s determination to cut back the hotline’s hours and redesign the coaching curriculum for hotline volunteers. After the botched hospital go to, Broussard stated that moderately than working constructively to handle what had gone improper, Kimble-Worth relegated her to what she described as “desk obligation” — doing consumption for walk-in purchasers. On the time, Broussard stated, it was uncommon for survivors to stroll in for providers due to pandemic restrictions.

“I used to be compelled to take a seat alone in our workplace and was not given any work to do in any respect,” she stated.

Broussard stated that Kimble-Worth didn’t define clear steps for a way she may resume the job she was employed to do, so Broussard interpreted the reassignment as retaliation. She resigned in 2023.

One other former worker, who labored at BRAVE from 2016 to 2023, stated that Kimble-Worth reassigned her to a lesser position after she took break day to get well from a sexual assault.

In August 2022, the worker stated she instructed Kimble-Worth concerning the assault, and Kimble-Worth advised that she go on short-term incapacity depart. When the worker returned to work 5 months later, she stated, Kimble-Worth notified her that her place had been eradicated and provided her a distinct position — one which she stated felt like a demotion.

“It was fully surprising,” stated the worker, noting that her new position entailed being on-call on the weekend.

In August 2023, the worker realized from a company-wide electronic mail that she and three different employees members had been laid off. Kimble-Worth, the worker stated, didn’t give her a heads-up earlier than hitting ship.

“It ripped my coronary heart out,” the worker stated. “I’d have cleaned bathrooms to maintain working at BAWAR. … I requested to volunteer however was not allowed to do this.”

BRAVE publicizes it’s shutting down for good

In February 2024, Marshall submitted their resignation letter and despatched a ultimate whistleblower grievance to the nonprofit’s board of administrators, once more accusing Kimble-Worth of mismanagement.

“Our crew has introduced forth complaints of poisonous surroundings, worry for his or her jobs, missing company, a chaotic surroundings, and feeling like they’re strolling on eggshells and being micromanaged,” Marshall wrote.

Campbell, in her capability as board chair, wrote again that the board would “start working with an HR skilled to analyze the matter.” She promised to observe up with Marshall the next week — however her subsequent electronic mail to Marshall arrived almost a month later. It stated the board was searching for to “outsource this effort.”

After their final day at BRAVE, Marshall forwarded their grievance and the board’s response to the union. When a union member requested the board for an replace, Campbell responded that updates could be shared solely with the writer of the grievance.

On Might 5, Kimble-Worth and Schoonmaker, who had joined the board in January, introduced BRAVE could be closing for good. Marshall emailed BRAVE’s board members two days later, accusing them of ignoring their complaints and shutting down the nonprofit to hide “monetary fraud and mismanagement.”

“What have you ever achieved except for delay, distract, and defend the actions of somebody who could also be struggling however is able of energy and authority and wields it irresponsibly,” Marshall wrote.

On July 28, Schoonmaker wrote to Marshall, telling them that the third-party investigation into their complaints had concluded.

“We’re unable to share any additional particulars relating to that course of,” Schoonmaker wrote.

Schoonmaker didn’t reply to The Oaklandside’s request for the findings from the investigation.

BRAVE, in response to the closure announcement, will proceed working its hotline and its San Leandro disaster middle by means of the tip of September, however with restricted hours.

Now a director at one other Oakland nonprofit, Marshall stated they really feel saddened by the closure of a storied establishment — and the loss it signifies for survivors of sexual assault within the East Bay.

“I do know that I’ve not all the time made one of the best choices alongside the best way, and I believe that’s the disgrace and guilt that I proceed to wrestle with,” they stated. “It helps to be making corrective actions.”

In her emailed assertion to The Oaklandside, Crain wrote that the group “was a cornerstone” of the motion in opposition to gender-based violence. “I by no means imagined I’d witness this second,” she wrote, “and I’m heartsick at this loss for survivors.” She stated that the group’s transition to BRAVE Bay Space signaled “the tip of thought management, experience, and coverage innovation.”

Broussard stated she worries not only for people who find themselves sexually assaulted sooner or later, but in addition those that have turned repeatedly to BRAVE’s providers for years. She recalled one survivor of rape and incest who, each few months, would name the hotline in the midst of the night time when she awakened from PTSD-related nightmares.

“This work is crucial, and it does stop additional violence and retaliation,” Broussard stated. “There’s going to be a lot extra violence and extra individuals in conditions they should get out of, however can’t.”