Our PTO has a situation which I am not sure how to handle. Our Vice-President has recently started her own charity/memorial fund in honor of a family member. The school has allowed her to use their non-profit status and id number to operate this charity. She and her husband are the people who get to decide where the money is spent. According to their own website the money is being raised to "Help the children in our community through promoting volunteerism, purchasing items for classrooms, sponsoring events for kids, helping families in need and other opportunities as they arise."

The problem that we are having is that she has been using the PTO and it's events to promote her charity. She has made announcements at our meetings about upcoming fundraising events(initially with my approval) The big problem came when she set up a table to sell t-shirts to benefit her charity at a pto dance which was not supposed to be a fund-raising event. After the dance, at our next board only meeting, I told her that I didn't think it was appropriate for her to be promoting her charity at PTO events. While I do not have a problem with her charity, I do think she needs to be able to separate the 2 organizations. She now no longer speaks to me which has made PTO business very difficult and tense. There were a few items that she originally said she had solicited for the PTO, that she now says were solicited for her charity and she has withdrawn them from our use(gift certificates, sports tickets for prizes, etc.)

Was I wrong to tell her to keep things separate? How do I handle things from here? I have been an officer for the past 2 years and never encountered anything like this. The whole situation has made things miserable for everybody involved. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!