Charities Are Threatened By Fraud

Gary Snyder

The recently released book, Silence: The Impending Threat to the Charitable Sector is a 5-year endeavor to bring to light painful facts that could lead to an imminent catastrophe. And that's not hyperbole – it's validated on virtually every page of this book.

Billions of dollars of donor´s contributions to charities are taken from those to whom it was intended. Fraud is omnipresent in the nonprofit sector and no one cares says watchdog Gary Snyder in his recent book, Silence: The Impending Threat to the Charitable Sector. One out of every $8 is embezzled; a rate almost twice that of the business sector.

Snyder asserts that the direction and future of the charitable sector has been hijacked by greed. "I am disturbed that fraud is sabotaging the underpinnings of giving," he writes. "Donors believe that government, sector leaders, boards and other watchdogs will control this overt pillaging…all have let them down. With no well-defined owners or overseers and few outside constraints, there is little interest is stopping this nonprofit contagion.

The problems are endemic; it is having a corrosive effect. Scandals have forced prominent institutions like the Smithsonian Institution, American Red Cross, many universities, United Way affiliates and hundreds more to undergo changes in operations and leadership and engage in years´ long campaigns to renew public confidence. Moreover, even the most prominent rebuilding campaigns have achieved at best cosmetic changes. The fundamental rot continues.

This book is a powerful depiction of deception of tens of billions of dollars a year. Silence: The Impending Threat to the Charitable Sector is the result of mining vast amounts of data from the largest repository of charity fraud anywhere, reviewing thousands of fraud cases. It also suggests ways to convert bad habits into best practices, averting a huge calamity.

Silence: The Impending Threat to the Charitable Sector is a deep, honest look into philanthropy and its practices and is seeking a broad and demonstrable change in beliefs and thinking. Silence attempts to produce a new commitment to honesty—both intellectually and behaviorally on which a foundation of trust and sustainability can be built.

Silence may be purchased at Amazon (amazon.com), Barnes and Noble (bn.com), or at retail book stores.







Nonprofit Imperative gathers its information principally from public documents...some of which are directly quoted. Virtually all cited are in some phase of criminal proceedings; some have not been charged, however. Cites in various media: Featured in print, broadcast, and online media outlets, including: Vermont Public Radio, Miami Herald, National Public Radio, Huffington Post, The Sun News, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Wall Street Journal (Profile, News and Photos), FOX2, ABC Spotlight on the News, WWJ Radio, Ethics World, Aspen Philanthropy Newsletter, Harvard Business Review, Current Affairs, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, St. Petersburg Times, B, USA Today Topics, , Newsweek.com, Responsive Philanthropy Magazine, New York Times...and many more • Nonprofits: On the Brink (iUniverse, 2006)