Not Again...

Since I started keeping this blog in 2007 I’ve brought you a number of stories about financial misconduct, management misconduct, and outright fraud in the nonprofit sector, and ranted about the responsibility of donors to investigate the organizations to which they give their money. It’s always been hard for me to fathom why people get taken in by scams of this type when there is information available online for free that would completely debunk the so-called charity that is trying to get money out of them. But then, people keep falling for the Nigerian Royalty scam, too, just as their parents or grandparents fell for the Spanish Prisoner con on which the Nigerian email scam is based – and despite dozens or hundreds of online resources that would debunk every version of that fraud. It doesn’t look as if things are going to be changing any time soon…

A case in point would be the alleged Veteran’s charity group calling itself the Disabled Veterans National Foundation, based in Washington D.C. You can pick up the story on the CNN website if you want to, or look them up on Charity Watch, but the facts of the case seem clear enough. The Foundation claims to provide services and resources for disabled veterans, but according to their published records they’ve received $55.9 million over the past five years and spent $61 million to the marketing firm that handles their marketing and direct solicitation funds. It’s not clear from the agency’s paperwork how giving tens of millions of dollars to for-profit marketing companies is supposed to help disabled veterans or anyone else; it’s also not clear where the extra $5 million came from, although I imagine the IRS will be looking into that. It’s also not clear what financial relationship exists between the people running the so-called charity and the people who own the marketing companies, but I’d bet you cash there is one…

Once the people running the Foundation realized that they’d been found out they started some of the most farcical damage control efforts I’ve ever seen, sending out what appear to be random lots of consumer products acquired in bulk (and presumably at a steep discount) to a couple of local veterans’ groups – both of which appear to be baffled by the “donations” and completely at a loss about what to do with them. In fairness, it’s hard to imagine what an agency working with disabled veterans is supposed to do with 2,600 bags of cough drops, 2,200 little bottles of hand sanitizer, needlepoint pillow designs, acrylic paints or 11,520 bags (80 gross) of coconut M&Ms, but it’s even harder to imagine how anybody could imagine that this would look enough like a legitimate donation to provide any cover…

Okay, it’s an old story – except for the random “donations,” which I feel are particularly manic – and readers of this blog (assuming I have readers) have heard it all before. I call it to your attention again specifically because it is an old story, and it isn’t going to go away – but this may be the first time in history when it is really possible to fight back. Fake charity scams are the counterpart of the Nigerian Royalty email, preying upon guilt instead of greed – a motivation just as basic, and just as human – and they aren’t going to stop any time soon. But debunking them no longer requires specialized education, professional training, or bitter experience. Just as it isn’t possible for some random know-it-all on the barstool next to you to snow you with a bunch of fake “knowledge” if you’ve got a web-enabled phone in your pocket, it isn’t possible for anyone to sell you on a fake charity when you can visit Charity Watch or Charity Navigator or any one of a dozen other resources before you give them a dime…