Although I am not a CPA I do have an MBA in Finance and a JD degree, and serve of the board of directors and provide legal services to a number of not-for-profit organizations. I spent about five minutes reviewing the Freedom Alliance's 2008 Tax Return, and the first thing that jumped out at me is exactly what you point out: The Freedom Alliance has about $16 million in investments and $3 million in cash and is obviously operating as a charitable trust or endowment. Thus, the Freedom Alliance administrative overhead and expense is about one-third of the assets that are used to fund the scholarships and other charitable distributions. In my experience, this is not out of line for a trust of this size, and the asset to expense ratio should improve as the size of the trust continues to grow because the expenses are relatively fixed whether the trust assets are $10 million or $100 million.
I note that Debbie "the Shrill" Schlussel does not cite the opinion of a CPA or other expert on charitable organizations to support her conclusions and relies instead upon unnamed friends and friends of friends as proof that Hanity travels in style.
I also note that I am not a Hannity Groupie, and view him as the blonde cheerleader who knows all the cheers, but not a lot about the game. Nevertheless, I am willing to bet that Schlussel has this very wrong and once again comes off as a jealous attention whore.
Good post, and the cheerleader comment made me chuckle.
Thanks for your information. I thought that’s how all large foundations operate. They use the interest to fund, while investing the donations.
**Hey, I was a “Blond Cheerleader” in high school. ;)
I'm not a big fan of his show, but it seems he is in fact a very, very good guy with this charity.
The exact ratio of direct aid to operating expenses doesn't appear out of line, but whatever it is, Sean Hannity is obviously giving more or his time and money to the troops and their families than anyone I know.
I was predisposed to believe Debbie Schlussel as I've enjoyed her writings, but I was wrong.