Free Republic

Yes: Their conflicts of interest mean they don’t deliver on credibility By GARY SNYDER The charitable sector is struggling to keep the public’s confidence because it lacks good governance, financial accountability, transparency and provisions against conflicts of interests. It mirrors the attributes —- greed, arrogance and outrageous corporate behavior —- assigned to the for-profit sector. Angel Food Ministries is an example. It joins the ever-growing list of nonprofits that feel their mission gives them reason not to subscribe to generally acceptable charitable guidelines. Their mission is not unique, but their practices are. Fat salaries, loans approved but not by an...

A nonprofit organization founded by California's largest union local reported spending nothing on its charitable purpose -- to develop housing for low-income workers -- during at least two of the four years it has been operating, federal records show. The charity, launched by a scandal-ridden Los Angeles chapter of the Service Employees International Union, had total expenses of about $165,000 for 2005 and 2006, and all of the money went to consulting fees, insurance costs and other overhead, according to its Internal Revenue Service filings. Charity watchdogs say that nonprofits should never have zero program expenses in two successive years...

Early last year, Alejandro Stephens' long tenure as president of one of California's biggest union locals came to an end after the labor organization he headed merged into a larger local. The Service Employees International Union sweetened Stephens' exit with severance payments and other compensation that totaled nearly $180,000, said union spokeswoman Michelle Ringuette. A condition was that Stephens give up the salary he was receiving from Los Angeles County, Ringuette said. Under an agreement between the union and the county, taxpayers covered the salary of the head of the union local. The separation deal has since become the focus...

It’s time to stop government funding and tax breaks for “Big Abortion.” That’s the message from U.S. Rep. Michele Bachman, R.-Minn. Speaking at the Family Research Council Values Voter Summit on September 12, Bachman detailed how Planned Parenthood – a controversial non-profit “family planning” organization that reportedly performed 289,750 abortions in 2006 – has expanded significantly. She cited a June 23 Wall Street Journal article by Stephanie Simon that revealed 501(c)3 organization had a record $1 billion in annual revenue in a recent financial report. “I got a call from my husband one morning that said, ‘Michele, take a look...

CAIR Exposed: Part 1 As IAP Offshoot, CAIR Followed Pro-Hamas Agenda From the Start by Steven Emerson IPT News March 24, 2008FEATURE STORY   From the Hamas ties of its founders in 1994 to its solicitous stance toward accused terrorists today, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has demonstrated that its actual mission is far removed from the civil rights advocacy it claims to pursue. Still standing as perhaps the clearest evidence of CAIR's insidious role, two key leaders of the group attended a 1993 meeting in Philadelphia called by Hamas members and supporters to devise a strategy for torpedoing...

Judge sides with CAIR against Michael Savage (Talk Radio) March 11, 2008 © 2008 WorldNetDaily Michael Savage A Clinton-appointed judge in California is siding with the Council on Islamic-American Relations in a lawsuit by radio talk-show host Michael Savage. Judge Susan Illston has issued a terse one-page ruling in the case in which she "granted" a defense motion for judgment on the pleadings with "leave to amend." Although it was released only today, it was dated Friday, apparently finalized shortly after she held a hearing on the issues at hand. It was posted on Michael Savage's website, under the headline...

CH-UH library postpones ‘anti-Israel’ documentary BY: DOUGLAS J. GUTH Senior Staff Reporter The Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library has postponed a three-part series on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict amid concerns from Jewish residents that the program would be biased against

Americans worked a median of 52 hours last year without pay. They’re called volunteers. Many organizations can’t survive without unpaid labor, and many people are glad to provide it. Sadly, though, data released Wednesday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that both the number of volunteers and the volunteer rate — the percentage of the population that volunteers — declined in 2007 from 2006. Volunteering also had fallen in 2006 from 2005. About 60.8 million Americans, age 16 and up, volunteered in 2007, compared with a high of 65.3 million in 2005. The proportion of that population that...

When Mike Huckabee became lieutenant governor of Arkansas in 1993, he complained of being burdened by college tuition bills for his son, the expenses of two residences — one in Texarkana and the other in Little Rock — and the cost of commuting between the two. With an annual salary of $25,452, he said he was falling short in covering the bills. “It was costing me money to be lieutenant governor,” Mr. Huckabee recalled in a 1997 newspaper interview. To bridge the gap between his income and his expenses, Mr. Huckabee and a few close political advisers came up with...

Congressional committees, state attorneys general and now the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are placing nonprofit organizations under scrutiny and sending them scrambling for legal advice on sound governance practices. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 heightened awareness about governance at all kinds of organizations, from the public companies at which it was directed, to private firms and nonprofit groups. Subsequent scandals involving financial practices at nonprofits prompted government agencies increasingly to view such organizations with skepticism. A 2003 media expose of the Nature Conservancy's governance, executive compensation and land sale practices ... The finance committee also catalyzed change at the American...

Health advocates wrote to the governor, lobbied legislators and worked closely with the New Jersey League of Municipalities. And their efforts have paid off. Earlier this summer, a 7 percent state tax on gym memberships and health clubs was repealed by the state Legislature -- giving a sigh of relief to health clubs around the state. Rick Gorab, president and CEO of the Metropolitan YMCAs of the Oranges -- which has branches in Livingston, Maplewood, East Orange and Sussex County -- said 44 YMCAs banded together statewide to repeal the tax, which was passed last October. "We are a charitably-based...

The last time I looked at the salaries of NPR hosts and executives, as listed on the radio news outlet's IRS 990 forms, was back in November 2004. Sure, the compensation packages and salaries were very generous, and I'm not the least bit surprised the NPR folks have increased their pay. Although seeing rather enormous salaries and packages in the nonprofit news radio world gives me reason to consider how high the compensation must be at for-profit private radio news stations. Here are the figures from the latest IRS 990 form for National Public Radio, FY 2005, just for the...

ST. PAUL - Most nonprofits have to compete for state money, but Let's Go Fishing of Minnesota got its $325,000 grant directly from lawmakers who wrote the Willmar-based group into a big education bill. Also written into law were grants for Hunger Solutions, a statewide coalition of foodshelves, and the Living at Home/Block Nurse Program, which helps seniors get support services and health care to stay in their homes. Legislative Auditor James Nobles said Friday it's time for lawmakers to quit hand-picking which groups get state grants.

Federal authorities have subpoenaed bank records from a Chevy Chase nonprofit group over questions about its financial reporting for work performed for NASA, including the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Maryland has sought financial records from the Alliance for Competitive Technology as part of a federal probe into whether the group made false claims to NASA, court records show. The Justice Department and the attorney's office filed papers in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt June 30 on behalf of NASA's Office of Inspector General based at Goddard. The papers say the nonprofit group refused...

Were The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation a public company, it would rank among the entire world's 400 largest by asset size--before getting a single dime of Warren Buffett's promised money. But the $35 billion of assets listed on the foundation's latest financial statement, as of Dec. 31, is only one measure of its gargantuan magnitude. An active, aggressive player in financial markets, the foundation turns over the equivalent of its entire asset base on average about every two months. During 2005, the cash-flow statement shows, it purchased a staggering $250.7 billion of investments while selling $251.2 billion. Turnover at...

Apollo Group is the biggest of the ForPro education groups. It owns the University of Phoenix. Yesterday its stock fell 2 percent after reporting lower third-quarter profits because of higher costs. Corinthian Colleges is another of the big players. It, too, reported a loss of 3 cents/share. DeVry lost 15 cents, and Educational Services lost 3 cents/share as well. Everybody's trading down, albeit down very little. Does this mean that the quality of education provided by these groups has also dipped? Are students losing out 2% on their classes? or 3 cents/dollar they spend on their tuition? Hardly. One of...

Good overview on how the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) turns a blind eye to massive corruption and fraud in programs designed to create "affordable" housing. The result? Inflated housing costs in poor neigborhoods and financial ruin for poor and working class people who are ripped off by politically connected "nonprofits" and corrupt local governments. Who cleans up the mess? You guessed it -- the taxpayer.

Schools want regional accreditation. Fopros also want regional accreditation. It gives them status, recognition, and confidence with their students, who might want to take their class units and transfer them to a four-year or other institution. Fopros will go to extremes to get this accreditation. In order to get accreditation, schools must meet a number of standards - course offerings, financial stability, library facilities, and a certain quota of full-time faculty to name a few. Nowhere does it say the schools must actually be carrying out their objective of student learning - interesting, eh? There is also a waiting period,...

The American Council on Education is a coordinating body for higher education. Recently it released some interesting statistics - interesting to people who care about higher education, non-profit and fopro alike. Just one in six of the undergraduates in college are the "typical" 18-year-old who lives on campus and gets a BA by cramming 4 years into five. Students who are 25 years old and up account for almost 40 percent of undergraduates. More than half of all the older students attend a community college - 29 percent are in private schools, and 12 percent attend fopros. Most of the...

With so many adult students, opinions are flying everywhere on how they might be served best and what is needed most. Gary Berg, author of Lessons From the Edge, offers up these four main pressures: 1. Diminishing financial support 2. The call to serve adult learners and first-generation college students 3. A need to balance liberal-arts and applied curricula 4. A subsequent necessity of maintaing an evolving institutional mission. Fopros are in a position to address these pressures. Like them or love them, many experts credit the University of Phoenix with being the most innovative of the higher-education bunch. UoP...