Thanks for the thorough explanation. That does put quite a different light on it, indeed. My apologies for jumping to conclusions in my first response.
Personally, I probably wouldn't have had the balls to raise as much dust as you did, but ideally, why didn't you warn the leaders of the organization that unless the issues were resolved internally, you'd be providing evidence of misconduct to the media at such-and-such a date, giving them time to prepare whatever PR kung-fu organizations do during scandals?
To me it just seems really immoral to walk away when taxpayer money is involved...
I see your point, but it could be seen as equally immoral (if not more so) for me to cause the destruction that would have resulted. Especially since it would have hurt other people more than it hurt the perpetrators.
Threatening them with a media leak was one option. But it didn't seem to be a very good one, not to me or any of my mentors. The only way for an actual net-positive result here was for the management to be swiftly but quietly replaced by those with the power to do so. We went as far as we could to push for that.
Personally, I probably wouldn't have had the balls to raise as much dust as you did, but ideally, why didn't you warn the leaders of the organization that unless the issues were resolved internally, you'd be providing evidence of misconduct to the media at such-and-such a date, giving them time to prepare whatever PR kung-fu organizations do during scandals?
To me it just seems really immoral to walk away when taxpayer money is involved...