Tears Foundation founder accused of taking donor money for personal use

Funding at the Tears Foundation, a non-profit organisation aimed at combating gender-based violence, has come under the spotlight in a court application implicating its founder in irregular expenditure of R2m. (This Tears Foundation is not related to the animal rescue foundation with a similar name.)

In the application, which came before Gauteng High Court judge Denise Fisher, Tears sought an order to compel its auditors to amend an audit report that flagged the payment by the foundation to another company, Fireworx Management Solution. Fireworx is owned by Tears founder Mara Glennie.

But Fisher has dismissed the application and directed Glennie to file an affidavit explaining why she should not be ordered to pay the court costs on a punitive scale and at the highest possible rate out of her own pocket.

The Tears Foundation was founded by Glennie, herself a survivor of violence, in 2012, along with her co–director, Michael Johnson. The two are romantic partners. According to its website it operates a 24-hour crisis hotline.

It is donor-funded and gets donations from Standard Bank, Avbob, Capitec, Bidvest Services and Toyota SA, among others. Between March and October 2024, it received more than R7m in funding from these companies and it also received donations from the general public.

The Tears Foundation was recently given the “Best Social Organisation of the Year” award by an organisation called Women Icon.

Fisher said that before July 2023, Glennie had been employed by Tears but then began providing her services through Fireworx as a “consultant”.

“Essentially it is her alter ego,” Fisher said.

She said that in May 2024, an accounts manager employed by Tears, Dirk Bornebusch, expressed concerns, writing to Glennie about how the foundation was being run financially. He listed seven items of concern, including that Glennie was putting her personal expenses through the Tears bank account.

Fisher said Glennie alleges that Bornebusch eventually notified donors of these irregularities and was attempting to “sink Tears”, because he was friends with another employee, Clair Thompson, who wanted to establish her own company and attract Tears’ donors.

Glennie obtained an interdict against Bornebush, but major donors withdrew their regular funding. The donors then required that Tears provide an independent audited financial statement before funding would resume.

This task was given to Burton van Staaden of VBS Chartered Accountants.

He flagged a R2m payment by Tears to Fireworx and reported it to the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (IRBA) as a “suspected irregularity”.

Glennie and Johnson were unhappy. They alleged the “loan” was to be used for the purchase of a property, a safe-house for abused women, the “Joy Cottage project”. They claimed the money was repaid to Tears, and Glennie and Johnson wanted the irregularity expunged.

Van Staaden refused to do so. He said he would go no further than state “that the irregularity was no longer taking place”.

He also said that Bornebusch had disclosed to him that other payments had been made to Groundwave, a company owned by Johnson, for “consulting fees”.

When Tears’ urgent application came before Fisher, she raised concerns about the transaction and directed Glennie to file a further affidavit.

Glennie’s lawyers tried unsuccessfully to have the matter removed from Fisher.

She then asked for a “more complete picture” of the nature of the business of Fireworx and Groundwaves, noting that Van Staaden had raised concerns about common directorships and a potential for conflict of interest.

Glennie said Groundwave, which provides products and services in the electrical engineering industry, had provided Tears with advice on technical matters and had sold it products. It had also provided administrative assistance, filling out grant applications, developing business plans and conducting research.

Glennie produced bank statements reflecting that Fireworx had three accounts and Tears six accounts.

Fisher said the Fireworx account was opened in June 2023 and the R2m “alleged loan” was transferred as an “investment deposit” a week later.

Regular payments were then made “as consultancy fees” by Tears to Fireworx. These were initially R100,000 but increased to R150,000 per month.

Then, from July 2023 to October 2023, there were several “large transactions” out of the Fireworx account, including R200,000, referenced as “Summerhaze”, which is Glennie’s residence.

In September, the statements showed a credit card facility had been linked to the account. These showed 50 transactions totalling R193,000.

“The credit card was used to pay the living expenses of Glennie. The merchants’ references show purchases ranging from grocery stores, clothing shops, monthly beauty salon charges, pharmacy charges, restaurant charges and payments to hardware stores and to pet shops,” Fisher said.

And the “consultancy fees” paid by Tears to Fireworx amounted to about R1.8m a year.

Fisher said based on the bank statements, Glennie lived a “life of relative luxury”, and the only money in Fireworx account came from consultancy fees paid by Tears and the R2m alleged loan from Tears.

She also noted that the “alleged loan” was interest free. Fireworx was earning interest on it, while Tears was not.

Fisher said there was a clear conflict of interest, the consultancy fees seemed to be “relatively high”, and she had concerns that Glennie was attempting, in her application, to stop exposure of potential mismanagement and even misappropriation of the funds.

“The transfer of the R2m occurred at a time when Glennie started providing her services as a consultant through Fireworx. There is no evidence of this alleged loan. Van Staaden requested the loan agreement, but was told it was lost.

“There is no evidence of the alleged negotiations relating to the property purchase. Not even one email is put up. This is notwithstanding that the negotiations were said to be with Standard Bank. This suggests that the Joy Cottage project is nothing more than a recent fabrication,” the judge said.

She said the explanation regarding the R2m “was so implausible that it falls to be rejected out of hand”.

“The movement of funds back and forward into different accounts seems to me to be unbridled and inexplicable. The fact that the loan agreement was ‘lost’ and had to be refabricated is a further indication that the payment was not a loan but a misappropriation into the newly opened bank account of Fireworx.”

She said the application was a “cynical attempt” to avoid disclosure and transparency.

Dismissing the application, Fisher said that while a punitive cost order was warranted, it would be inappropriate for these costs to be paid out of donor funds and called on Glennie to show cause why she should not personally pay out of her own pocket.

She also directed the IRBA to notify any appropriate regulator, including the SA Revenue Service, of the reported irregularity.

GroundUp