Target of Defamation, need NON LEGAL advice

I don't know the specific details because I have not been privy to any of the private communications that have circulated via email and verbally. An ex-employee who was dissatisfied and had an axe to grind started doing all sorts of things including telling people that regulations were being broken, unqualified people were being hired, and that she was the sole person doing everything at the school. There were even more heinous ones that I will not get into here. I have been investigated several times due to these accusations which have resulted in zero times of actually written up since upon investigation, it was always revealed that nothing was in fact broken or violated.

During this time, I found that people did not really want to speak to me but preferred to keep demonizing everything behind my back. I chose not to get into a counter-accusation game because it lacked professionalism and I was advised by friends to remain the mature one. I'm not sure how much good if any that has done as it seems to have just fueled their continued gossiping in the lack of any counter arguments.

In any case, I have suffered significant financial damage from all this and due to the damage to my perception in the surrounding community, I continue to suffer the consequences as people are weary of even looking at the place.

Again I am not looking for any legal remedies in all this as I lack the emails being sent and also it would not do much good in the long term reputation wise. (I learned about the emails because I spoke with a parent who finally realized there was another side to things and they mentioned that there were very heinous and negative things being exchanged)

/r/smallbusiness Thread Parent