Carol Hansell Comments on Goodwill Board Resignation
February 10, 2016
The former chairman of the volunteer board of Goodwill’s shuttered Toronto-based chapter says he and his fellow volunteer directors were facing a “trial by fire” and did not abandon the troubled charity by resigning en masse and shutting it down last month, throwing 430 people out of work.
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Carol Hansell, a Toronto lawyer who specializes in advising corporate boards, said it is not unusual for boards of directors in the corporate world to resign when facing an insolvency to avoid triggering that personal liability for unpaid wages.
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She said she has given directors similar advice: “If you are [a volunteer director] sitting there thinking, ‘Well, there is actually a fair chance that I can lose my house if this doesn’t go well’ … I don’t know who thinks that is reasonable to ask them to do that.”