AG Ferguson wins $1.4M judgment against Vancouver-area charity directors who misused charitable funds

The Noble Foundation founder Ophelia Noble must sell and pay proceeds from house and car she purchased with charities’ money

VANCOUVER — A Clark County Superior Court judge has approved a judgment of more than $1.4 million against former directors of three Vancouver-area charities as a result of Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s lawsuit. Founder Ophelia Noble and the former directors of The Noble Foundation misused charitable funds that were meant to serve communities of color and low-income individuals in southwest Washington.

The foundation and its charities almost exclusively raised money from state grants and major philanthropic organizations.

Noble failed to account for more than $1 million of the foundation’s charitable funds in violation of Washington’s Nonprofit Corporation Act. Examples of Noble’s misuse of charitable funds include paying herself hundreds of thousands of dollars, using charity money to buy a vehicle for her personal use, and directing The Noble Foundation to buy her father’s house and reselling it to her at a deep discount. The other directors — Douglas Noble (Noble’s father), Alice Prejean (Noble’s mother), Joann Hampton and Alyce Noble (Noble’s daughter) — violated their own responsibilities to the organization by enabling Noble’s misconduct, approving and at times financially benefiting from it.

The order requires Noble and the other directors to jointly pay $25,000 for misusing the charitable funds. Noble must sell the house and car she unlawfully purchased with the charitable funds and repay the proceeds — a combined value of approximately $400,000. Those resources will cover part of the cost of the Attorney General’s investigation and lawsuit. They will be used toward future enforcement of laws protecting charitable assets.

Noble is also banned for life from operating or managing a charity in Washington. The other directors are banned from charity management in Washington for the next 10 years. The remaining $1 million in civil penalties are suspended as long as Noble and the other directors follow the law and comply with the terms of the judgment. If they do not, they will be required to pay the $1 million, plus interest.

“Ophelia Noble and the charities’ directors failed the communities they were supposed to serve,” Ferguson said. “My office will continue to be a watchdog ensuring that charities follow the law.”

Assistant Attorneys General Rose Duffy, Robby Staley and Joshua Studor; Paralegals Savannah Krug, Kristina Winfield, Lauretta Dunn, Mary Barber and Ashley Totten; Legal Assistants Nathan Pinard and Avery Gault; and Investigators Bau Vang, Michelle Bigos-Taylor and Rebecca Hartsock handled the case for Washington.

Ophelia Noble, family benefited from nearly $1 million in misused funds

Ophelia Noble started The Noble Foundation in 2012 to serve communities of color in Vancouver, Kelso and Longview.

In 2019, the charity expanded rapidly, securing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Washington State Office of Financial Management as part of a state effort to encourage members of undercounted Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities to register for the 2020 Census.

The foundation continued to grow when the pandemic hit. Its directors created and managed a second charity, Our Place/Nuestra Casa Multicultural Center. Our Place established community centers and provided emergency rent assistance, vaccine outreach and other pandemic relief services.

With increased attention around racial justice and policing issues, the charities’ directors created a third charity, Southwest Washington Communities United for Change. Southwest purportedly focused on organizing protests and trying to increase participation and political representation for BIPOC communities in Clark and Cowlitz counties. It brought in several hundred thousand dollars from grantors interested in establishing a BIPOC-led political organization serving southwest Washington.

The charities received approximately $1.5 million from major philanthropic foundations, including the Northwest Health Foundation, Social Justice Fund Northwest, the Satterberg Foundation, the Community Foundation for Southwest Washington, Group Health/Inatai Foundation and the Seattle Foundation.

Beginning in 2019, Noble used her position as executive director to misappropriate large sums of donated charitable funds from the charities’ accounts.

The Attorney General’s investigation revealed that Noble and her family received direct, documented payments or benefits of nearly $1 million. Some examples:

• In July 2021, Noble caused the charities to pay her $355,000 in “back pay” for “contract services” purportedly provided between 2015 and 2021. There is no documentation that any lawful contracts existed, any money was owed, or that these payments were approved by the entities’ boards.
• The charities paid Noble’s consulting company $310,000 for unspecified “executive director services” that were never approved by the entities’ boards.
• $200,000 was either withdrawn from the various charities’ bank accounts without explanation or issued to unknown individuals in the form of cashier’s checks. Only Noble and the directors were authorized signers on these accounts.
• In 2020, Noble directed The Noble Foundation to purchase her father’s house for approximately $200,000, but she put her name on the deed as well as the charity’s. The following year, she paid the charity $100,000 for its interest in the home. When the charity transferred title to Noble in 2022, the house was worth at least $324,000, meaning Noble gained $224,000 in equity. There is no evidence the charity’s board appropriately reviewed and approved these transactions, which were clearly a conflict of interest for Noble.
• In 2020, Noble used The Noble Foundation’s money to purchase a 2019 Nissan Armada, which she used as her personal vehicle. She used the charity’s funds to make upgrades to the vehicle and cover maintenance and gas.
• Noble, her family and other directors used the charities’ money to fund over $65,000 in additional purchases that lack a clear connection to the entities’ charitable purposes, including for gift cards, meals, groceries, gas, travel, cellphones and personal clothing.

Other charity lawsuits

The Legislature identified the Attorney General’s Office as the agency tasked with enforcing the Nonprofit Corporation, Charitable Solicitations and Charitable Trust Acts. These laws ensure that nonprofits and entities that solicit charitable donations or manage charitable assets follow the laws adopted by the Legislature. These laws ensure that funds intended for charity are not misused.

The Attorney General’s Office’s Charitable Assets Protection Team specifically focuses on charity cases involving the misuse or misappropriation of funds solicited for a charitable purpose.

Other enforcement actions include:

Visit ftc.gov/charities for more information on how to avoid charity scams. Consumers who believe they have been affected by a charity’s deceptive conduct may file a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office at https://www.atg.wa.gov/file-complaint.

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Washington’s Attorney General serves the people and the state of Washington. As the state’s largest law firm, the Attorney General’s Office provides legal representation to every state agency, board, and commission in Washington. Additionally, the Office serves the people directly by enforcing consumer protection, civil rights, and environmental protection laws. The Office also prosecutes elder abuse, Medicaid fraud, and handles sexually violent predator cases in 38 of Washington’s 39 counties. Visit www.atg.wa.gov to learn more.

Media Contact:

Brionna Aho, Communications Director, (360) 753-2727; Brionna.aho@atg.wa.gov

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