{"id":10365,"date":"2017-11-03T02:44:54","date_gmt":"2017-11-03T02:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=10365"},"modified":"2017-11-04T02:47:41","modified_gmt":"2017-11-04T02:47:41","slug":"how-donors-can-help-make-nonprofits-more-accountable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/how-donors-can-help-make-nonprofits-more-accountable\/","title":{"rendered":"How donors can help make nonprofits more accountable"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aseem Prakash<\/a>, University of Washington<\/a><\/em> and Nives Dolsak<\/a>, University of Washington<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

As the devastating 2017 hurricane season got underway, the Internal Revenue Service<\/a> warned Americans to watch out for scammers asking for donations to nonexistent charities.<\/p>\n

But, especially as fundraising pitches<\/a> pile up in their inboxes and mailboxes during the final months of the year, donors need to do more than avoid fake nonprofits, because contributions to seemingly legitimate charities can also be a waste of money.<\/p>\n

A good example is Project Cure<\/a>. The Florida-based nonprofit was spending little of the millions it had raised on its official mission \u2013 lobbying Congress about alternative treatments for cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer\u2019s disease \u2013 when it got the dubious distinction of making the \u201cAmerica\u2019s Worst Charities<\/a>\u201d list compiled by the Tampa Bay Times and the Center for Investigative Reporting and published in their 2013 expose.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s perhaps even more troubling is that donors can continue to give to these unworthy causes after their outrages come to light. Project Cure, which is not affiliated with similarly named groups in Colorado and Ohio, still drew more than US$5.5 million in donations<\/a> in 2015, two years after becoming known as a textbook example of a bad charity, according to the most recent information available. According to IRS records, it continues to operate. <\/p>\n

Donor beware<\/h2>\n

As political scientists who do extensive research on nonprofits, we would like to see more donors look into the charities they support. Since Americans tend to grow more generous as the year winds down, making more than 20 percent of their online charitable donations in December<\/a>, this is an ideal season for donors to step up their scrutiny.<\/p>\n

On average, the charities that made the \u201c50 Worst\u201d list were channeling less than 4 percent of the money they raised into work tied to their missions in 2013. More donor scrutiny would, we believe, cut down on this kind of opportunism that takes place, in part, because official crackdowns are rare.<\/p>\n

One exception came in 2015. That\u2019s when every state attorney general joined the Federal Trade Commission<\/a>, an agency charged with monitoring and protecting consumers from anti-competitive, deceptive or unfair business practices, in disciplining four cancer charities operating as runaway gravy trains. <\/p>\n

The agency probed James Reynolds Sr., his ex-wife Rose Perkins, his son James Reynolds Jr. and business associate Kyle Effler. The four of them managed the Cancer Fund of America, Cancer Support Services, the Children\u2019s Cancer Fund of America and the Breast Cancer Society \u2013 charities the FTC said squandered $187 million in donations.<\/p>\n

Instead of using the money to help people with cancer, the funds paid for fancy cars and trips, cruises, college tuition and other personal benefits like memberships to gyms and dating sites, along with exorbitant salaries for the friends and relatives of the nonprofits\u2019 leaders.<\/p>\n

Eventually, all four reached settlements in which they agreed to stop doing charity work<\/a> and pay steep fines<\/a>. <\/p>\n

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