I would love to see any of Rosebud's defenders offer a credible defense for her being firing as a business decision. She claims the firing was retaliation. I'm convinced that is a smoke screen, and that her firing was inevitable based on performance. CTW was doomed to fail. Open Stories Foundation and JD recognized it before Rosebud did. She wouldn't let the affair go, then leveraged the affair to cry "harassment" when the inevitable happened, as inevitable things do.
Rosebud projects an aura of pride in having pioneered a most innovative revenue model for events ($0 admission, or 100% donations-based), but history supports Open Stories Foundation and JD for canning her when they did. She seems to insist that a real business opportunity was stripped form her. But this was just like any failed venture -- someone has to call it a day, even (especially!) if the entrepreneur insists on doubling down. The fact is that a decade later, it's obvious that paid-for events are a losing business proposition in exMo/progMo communities. There's no "there" there, no sustainable model. So for a new venture, Circling the Wagons represented nothing short of a fatal distraction. John and Open Stories Foundation knew it before Rosebud did. The affair muddied things, but the fact is she wasn't able to carry her weight and had no viable plan to carry her weight. It was a startup, so the outcome was inevitable. Affair or no, Rosebud would have been fired.
Supporting proof in context (all underline emphasis mine, italics my comments):
https://mormonismlive.org/wp-content/up ... -Email.pdf
Rosebud wraps Option 1 of her blackmail email with her primary demand: ownership over CTW. She wanted this. It was her baby. She believed that Open Stories Foundation could help her build it, and probably believed that only with Open Stories Foundation could she build it. But by then, John and his board had very clearly recognized that CTW was a loser.
Page 1: "Everyone tells the same story: John and [Rosebud] had a falling out. [Rosebud] decided to
work on Circling the Wagons. John wanted to focus more on school. ([Rosebud] withdrew from school.)"
Rosebud wraps Option 2 of her blackmail by showing just how strongly she believed Circling would be a commercial success. It was literally going to get her on Ellen.
Page 2: "[Rosebud] doesn't get excommunicated because she cries in the bishop's office. She puts together a Sunstone presentation about how to get out of getting the axe. It's a sensation and
gets her on the Ellen show because of her connection with Circling."
Rosebud wraps the blackmail email with a plea to restore access to Facebook groups, eg to let her continue running CTW on her own agenda, ie continue cultivating her pet project, separate and apart from John's podcast work.
Page 2: "Part of leaving us alone is lifting bans that hurt [Rosebud] and telling us where and we can and can't go and what we can and can't do... online or off. ... Banning [Rosebud] and telling her what to do with her email and
Facebook accounts, etc. is butting into her life. Telling [Rosebud] she has to send business mail through somebody else crosses our boundaries because its embarrassing, and, frankly a little over the top."
https://mormonismlive.org/wp-content/up ... drawal.pdf
Rosebud concedes it was a consensual, "mild" affair.
Page 3: "We have both conceded that we had a consensual sexual relationship and that it was mid in nature. That should be enough."
Rosebud thinks very highly of her business successes at Open Stories Foundation, even claiming that much of the success of Open Stories Foundation is due to her community outreach efforts, eg Circling the Wagons, and that this success must be just so obvious that John cannot but feel threatened by it. She is incredibly proud of the impact and opportunity inherent in the Circling venture she created under Open Stories Foundation's banner. She wants, above all other demands, to have Circling the Wagons restored to her, under Open Stories Foundation, because she believes so passionately in it.
Page 6: "I doubt he conceived in Times Square that
I would succeed in forwarding the movement and the organization to such an extent that he would find himself in the position of my presence both benefitting and
threatening him."
Page 6: "It is also accurate to state that if I had done a better job of protecting myself and had left the Open Stories Foundation in August of 2011,
the progressive Mormon movement would not be nearly as powerful as it is today. My work has positively impacted the lives of
thousands and has
catapulted the movement forward, changing it and progressive Mormonism forever. I feel proud of my
accomplishments despite my poor judgment."
Page 7: "I invite the Open Stories Foundation to
end its bannings and its board members, aside from Mr. Dehlin whom I would only like to interact with professionally in public spaces, to begin speaking to me.
I have social justice work to do."
https://mormonismlive.org/wp-content/up ... sponse.pdf
After the sex pleas stop, Rosebud just wants her community work back. She makes a desperate plea to go behind Joanna's back, restore her to lead the CTW communities into a transition of some kind, while hoping Joanna will simply resign. The transition must mean Rosebud taking influential control over the CTW groups again, and if not all then most. The only thing she wants is to own CTW again, under Open Stories Foundation's tent. CTW, in her mind, belongs to her. If John gives CTW back to Rosebud, the whole thing goes away.
Page 5: "If you can, please at least
make me an author on Mormon Stories so I can help NYC so that the drama doesn't make it directly to Ruchard Bushman. ... Joanna doesn't seem to understand
smooth transition in this circumstance, I will transition than resign. ... I will startup business again and then taper off. ... So please
give me MS access to allow me to help NYC and other committees that have expectations. ... Please add me back and
make me an admin in the main group. No need to make me an admin in all the regions. Doesn't matter. Would draw attention. ...
I will remove my own admin after transition."
Page 6: "Nor have I participated in anything that may have hurt you beyond what I did to protect myself at home with an [redacted] husband and to protect
the people who count on CTW."
Page 7: "John, please send me my files. I need them right away. ... Please have enough respect for me to send me my files and
unban me from my community. ... I just want my files and
my community."
Page 8: "First I said: 'Make things right' then "Never speak to me again' ...
You still haven't made things right. You're still holding things over my head. ... I think that you'll grow antlers if you answer me. Or if you
give me my files."
Page 9: "Just
give me the damn files and unban me so that I can quit texting you."
Page 9: "You pretend you want a
clean break while you simultaneously hold things over my head ... while in reality
you know I'd be more than happy to achieve a clean break. A break that isn't offensive and doesn't cross
my boundaries. ...
Well...... I need my files and my community."
Page 10: "I want my stuff. It's time for me to stand up for myself."
To which JD observed, accurately, in this statement on page 10
Page 10 (John Dehlin writing): "...I believe the above text messages clearly reveal ... that Ms. [rosebud] is only concerned with regaining access to Facebook groups, which groups I own and control -- not the Foundation."
So John owns the groups, but Rosebud believes she owns CTW, which is based on the groups, and she feels that by not giving her the groups, John is taking away her business project and her social work. She isn't asking for a settlement at this point, she just wants to run her CTW business by herself, leveraging John's name and reputation in the community. He doesn't want to lend his name or business to CTW anymore, but she can't let go of it and she doesn't believe she can achieve her designs without John giving her control over the communities that he, personally started and owns. THAT is what this is all about, not sexual harassment.
https://mormonismlive.org/wp-content/up ... nse1.2.pdf
Open Stories Foundation does not own the Facebook groups, John does. Therefore, Rosebud has no standing to demand access or control over them as part of any severance or termination agreement.
Page 3, Allegation 10: "The Foundation admits only that Dehlin (as well as other podcast hosts and Facebook group leaders) own, operate, and control their own Facebook and other online groups. The Foundation does not claim that it owns, controls, or has the right to control any online groups."
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uhgaMQ ... eU-bn/view
Immediately after John and Rosebud resign, and John reapplies as a 1099 contractor, Open Stories Foundation disbands the Facebook communities altogether, noting how important they are to local groups, but unwieldy as a centrally managed product. In other words, they're no good for business. Open Stories Foundation board members, including Joanna, send an email effectively cancelling the community events business motion under the Mormon Stories banner. The communities will all pass to local owners. Rosebud's vision of "owning" these communities, and of turning them into a sustained profitable commercial CTW enterprise -- the kind that will get her on Ellen, remember -- was misguided and unrealistic.
Page 2: "Over the next several weeks, we will also be transitioning regional Mormon Stories Facebook communities to local leadership and ownership. We know that where these communities are functioning well, they are a lifeline to their members;
however, one of the lessons we've learned in the last year is that even with a dedicated staff it is almost impossible to manage the tone and quality of these community interactions in a way that doesn't leave traditional believers feeling alienated, and we feel that this poses a major challenge to the Mormon Stories brand. For this reason, we'd like the communities that persist to do so without using the Mormon Stories name."
https://share.transistor.fm/s/07e76f1b
Give this a good listen. Hear how she is so sure of her ability to turn the CTW conferences into something valuable. She believes that she, and she alone, possessed the ability to make them a commercial success. She's reflecting on those early years when she helped recruit Claudia Bushman and Clayton Christensen to speak at conferences. She doesn't have any awareness, even many years later, that there's no business future in these events, regardless of any early "wins" with speakers and donations. Events is a crappy business. Takes a ton of time. Revenue is patchy at best. Managing communities in a transient population isn't a sustainable enterprise. Exmo Reddit may be the best success, and can anyone tell me someone besides Reddit who makes money from it?
At about the 100:00 mark, she talks about her last and final pitch the board on business as she's being terminated.
100:00 mark: "
I managed to convince the board to allow me to keep the Circling the Wagons project. Because John, in wanting to completely silence me, I mean he was telling people like, "the rule is [Rosebud] doesn't ever get to come to a Sunstone conference, like [Rosebud] has to disappear, and so we're going to give, " (and Sunstone was a competing organization), "we're going to gift, I don't want to do Circling the Wagons, because it was never my project, but I don't want [Rosebud] to have Circling the Wagons, because if [Rosebud] takes Circling the Wagons, then she will also have a voice, and I don't want [Rosebud] to have a voice, so he tried to gift Circling the Wagons off to Sunstone to completely silence me and get rid of me."
Wrong. Utter lack of awareness and any business sense. John wanted to give CTW away because it was a loser. And unfortunately, Rosebud and CTW were one the same to Open Stories Foundation. Maybe they'd have found a home for her, doing something else, out of kindness, but she lost that too by pushing John too far in the love department.
If the other messages supplied by Rosebud were still online, I could post more. I think Rosebud's refusal to stop pestering him for sex was a sort of final straw in what had already become an obviously untenable business partnership. John, and the Open Stories Foundation board, already knew there was no sustainable business value in communities or events, such as CTW. While, out of care or humanity, they may have all been delaying the cut off, it was inevitable from a business decision standpoint. Rosebud only hastened that decision by refusing to accept John's withdrawal of consent.
