Saturday Morning – "What Did You Say Your Name Is?"
Somebody in the world of news published a report the other day that almost all major newspapers and networks picked up and is usually headlined America's Worst Charities. In fact, the year-long research and compliation of the report was done by CNN partnered with the Tampa Bay Times and the Center for Investigative Reporting. It was their publication during the past week that flooded the news world and got a lot of firefighters and police officers all excited.
That's because when the list of the 50 worst "charities" was published, 14 of the 50 (28%) had "police" or "firefighters" and related buzz words included in their titles. But without exception, every one of these "charities" are bogus operations that rely heavily on telephone solicitations to generate donations using the weight of their carefully worded title.
Worse yet, some of them are so closely worded to simulate a genuing charity that it is difficult for the layman to notice the difference. For example, the scammers run Firefighters Charitable Foundation while the IAFF operates a genuine charity, IAFF Charitable Foundation. I think by now you are recognizing the scam because we have all been maliciously aligned with some of these crooks.
Let me give you some selected paragraphs from this excellent news report (they are not contiguous in the report itself):
The worst charity in America operates from a metal warehouse behind a gas station in Holiday, Florida. Every year, Kids Wish Network raises millions of dollars in donations in the name of dying children and their families.
Every year, it spends less than 3 cents on the dollar helping kids. Most of the rest gets diverted to enrich the charity's operators and the for-profit companies Kids Wish hires to drum up donations.
In the past decade alone, Kids Wish has channeled nearly $110 million donated for sick children to its corporate solicitors. An additional $4.8 million has gone to pay the charity's founder and his own consulting firms.
Kids Wish is not an isolated case, a yearlong investigation by the Tampa Bay Times and The Center for Investigative Reporting has found.
The 50 worst charities in America devote less than 4% of donations raised to direct cash aid. Some charities gave even less. Over a decade, one diabetes charity raised nearly $14 million and gave about $10,000 to patients. Six spent no cash at all on their cause.
– Even as they plead for financial support, operators at many of the 50 worst charities have lied to donors about where their money goes, taken multiple salaries, secretly paid themselves consulting fees or arranged fund-raising contracts with friends. One cancer charity paid a company owned by the president's son nearly $18 million over eight years to solicit funds. A medical charity paid its biggest research grant to its president's own for-profit company.
– Some nonprofits are little more than fronts for fund-raising companies, which bankroll their startup costs, lock them into exclusive contracts at exorbitant rates and even drive the charities into debt. Florida-based Project Cure has raised more than $65 million since 1998, but every year has wound up owing its fundraiser more than what was raised. According to its latest financial filing, the nonprofit is $3 million in debt.
To disguise the meager amount of money that reaches those in need, charities use accounting tricks and inflate the value of donated dollar-store cast-offs – snack cakes and air fresheners – that they give to dying cancer patients and homeless veterans.
To view the list of the "50 worst charities" CLICK HERE.
Read the investigative report in its entirety HERE.
Read the IAFF press release addressing this report HERE.
Perhaps later this afternoon you will have time to read these linked reports carefully. I hope you do and that you become conversant with them because it is important that we become able to effectively respond to citizen's requests and comments about this. They are sure to come, so be a good scout and Be Prepared.
We'll hike on over to the apparatus now and get the equipment checked out for today. I'll make sure the Bunn-O-Matic is operating properly and then we'll meet back in the day room.
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