Venture Portland Removes Its Executive Director

Venture Portland, a nonprofit that has historically given grants and staff support to business districts across the city, ousted its executive director this week.

Venture’s board of directors voted Oct. 15 to ask executive director Joy Church to exit the organization.

“I want to inform you that, effective today, Joy Church is no longer serving as Executive Director of Venture. We thank her for her contributions during her tenure and wish her the best in future endeavors,” wrote Venture board president Eric Larpenteur in an Oct. 29 email. “Please be assured that the organization remains strong and stable.”

Church’s departure comes just six months into a turbulent time for Venture. After decades of contracting with the city’s economic development agency to support business associations, Prosper Portland earlier this year announced it would no longer be funding Venture beginning in the 2025–26 Fiscal Year. That left the organization gutted of most of its stable funding. Though the nonprofit continued its work after the cut, it did so with fewer resources.

Larpenteur wrote that Church’s departure “positions us well for continued growth and success” even though the loss of Prosper funding “has forced us to reimagine what VP will be going forward, presenting opportunities and challenges.”

Larpenteur confirmed in a text to WW that the board voted to oust Church “for cause,” but declined to provide any further details. “Venture Portland is in the process of reinventing itself, and we decided we need to change in leadership,” Larpenteur wrote.

Venture had a rocky year leading up to Church’s departure. Prosper Portland decided to stop funding the organization after bankrolling it for nearly 35 years, with even more funding flowing to the nonprofit in the pandemic years thanks to federal relief funds. At the same time, Venture came under scrutiny for spending the vast majority of its annual funding on salaries, wages and benefits for staff and management. Just $95,000 went directly to 11 districts in the form of grants in fiscal year 2022–23. (Venture told WW this spring that in 2023, it provided $345,000 to 18 business districts.)

Church’s leadership, too, came under questioning this spring—largely from inside the organization itself.

Liaisons hired by Venture to work with specific business districts told WW on the condition of anonymity that Church was rarely seen in the office and that they were able to do good work in spite of Church’s leadership, not because of it.

Prosper also shared frustrations with Church’s leadership this spring. “Communication with Venture Portland has been challenging over recent years,” wrote then-executive director of Prosper Shea Flaherty Betin. (Church disagreed with this.)

Venture pushed back by engaging in a very public fight to stop Prosper from cutting it from the city’s payroll ahead of the City Council’s budget discussions, sending email blasts to members alleging that the cut was due to the “City Council’s lack of interest in small business,” a characterization Prosper denied. Venture’s fight did little; the council approved this year’s budget with no Prosper funding for Venture.

Now, Church, whose salary was $131,000 last year (up from her first year’s salary in 2020 of $88,000), is out.

Larpenteur in his Wednesday evening email said Jacob Falkinburg would step in to lead the organization on a temporary basis. Falkinburg last served as Venture’s spokesman and its director of member services.

Church did not immediately respond to a request for comment.