The Guilford Green Foundation announced Tuesday, Oct. 31 that Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan would no longer be the Guilford Green executive director as of Wednesday, Nov. 1.
It’s a little odd to announce one day that the executive director is leaving the next, but Vaughan said that she had actually stopped working full time about a month ago and the board had simply decided it was time to make the announcement. Vaughan said she had been asked to join the Guilford Green Foundation board as an indication that it was an amicable parting.
Certainly, as director of the foundation, whether the announcement is made Oct. 31 or Nov. 8 doesn’t make much difference, but as a candidate for mayor it’s not necessarily the kind of announcement you want one week before the election.
Vaughan was a somewhat controversial hire for Guilford Green, which raises money for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) organizations and causes. Some in the LGBT community thought a member of that community should have the job and protested at a Greensboro City Council meeting after it had been announced that Vaughan was the new executive director in February 2016.
Vaughan said she made the decision to leave because having two full-time jobs and trying to raise her daughter proved to be too much. She said that being mayor and executive director didn’t leave much time for family.
She said the straw that broke the camel’s back was when her daughter Catherine had car trouble on the way to school and Vaughan was too busy to go help her. She said at that point she realized she was trying to do too much and needed to transition out of her job as executive director.
Vaughan said she will get her real estate license in January and plans to work for her sister Amy Cook, who is a Realtor with Allen Tate Realtors. Vaughan said that job would allow her more flexibility to spend time with her daughter, and her grandson, who she said she didn’t see nearly enough.
