For a year and a half, Abundance Canada — formerly known as Mennonite Foundation of Canada — has been dealing with the aftermath of financial misconduct by Rick Braun-Janzen, a senior staff member.

The misconduct was discovered after the suicide death of Braun-Janzen on Jan. 8, 2024.

Braun-Janzen, 62, was a member of the organization’s leadership team and director of gift planning. He had been with Abundance, a registered public foundation, for 27 years, working out of the Winnipeg, Man., office.

“Abundance Canada has spent the last 18 months living through a tragedy, which we have resolutely addressed, bolstered by our faith, the resolve of our board and staff and the grace of our affected community stakeholders,” board chair Jennifer Thompson wrote in a letter to the organization’s 1,300 fundholders on Aug. 20.

In a suicide note received by the organization, Abundance learned Braun-Janzen had lost $7.9 million of donated money due to unauthorized trading on six donor funds.

Braun-Janzen had managed those funds since 2019 without organizational approval, the board chair’s letter stated, and kept his involvement in them secret. He also put the funds in riskier investments than what the board would have approved.

When the funds lost money, Braun-Janzen covered up the losses by falsi­fy­ing financial reports, which he could do since he set up and managed the organization’s financial system.

An audit initiated by Abundance after his death confirmed the loss of the funds. It also revealed Braun-Janzen had also been overstating earnings for other fundholders for years.

Through further internal reviews, Abundance discovered other improper activities, processes and system anomalies by Braun-Janzen. Those issues resulted in significant operational challenges, including the need to implement a new financial system.

There was never any indication anything was amiss with Braun-Janzen’s work, Thompson said. “There were no alarm bells, nothing found by auditors to indicate a problem or that there were insufficient controls,” she said.

The forensic audit concluded Braun-Janzen did not personally benefit from the misconduct. As a result, no criminal investigation was launched and no legal efforts were made to recover any funds from his family.

Abundance restored the funds to the six affected accounts with money from earnings and other internal sources.

Alan Goddard, appointed as CEO of Abundance in May, acknowledged that Abundance’s Mennonite history and character could have led people at the organization to be overly trusting of Braun-Janzen.

“Nobody else had the same knowledge of the financial system. He was intentional about who was allowed to manage it,” Goddard said. “There was too much trust in one person.”

The organization has instituted new governance processes and established and filled new posts of chief assurance officer and chief financial officer. “Now we have way more checks and balances,” Thompson said.

Goddard said Braun-Janzen’s motive wasn’t clear and might have been nothing more than wanting to earn as much as he could for the fundholders.

“He had a phenomenal reputation in the organization and the entire gift-planning sector,” he said. “It was a blow to learn he had been involved in unauthorized trading.”

In 2024, Abundance Canada disbursed $55 million to more than 2,000 charities across Canada.