by Gary Snyder
College football bowl games have long been identified with their charitable activities. A key supporter of the bowls boasted before Congress two years ago that as much as a quarter of the games’ revenues went to local charities. But public records show little charitable giving by the non-profits that run the events, either the four big games that host the sport’s championship or the many other postseason bowls.
At the Fiesta, Orange, Rose and Sugar bowls, charitable giving has amounted to roughly 2 percent of all revenue generated since the Bowl Championship Series began, records compiled by The Arizona Republic show. The most generous giving, records show, was by the Orange Bowl, which through 2009-10 had donated $7.9 million to charity since the BCS era started, the lion’s share of that in 2008-09 to restore a Miami park.
Since the BCS was formed in the 1998-99 season, records show:
- Its four bowls generated revenue of almost $759 million and gave to charity $14.8 million, roughly 2 percent. The figures do not include payouts to teams or spending that was not identified as charitable giving on IRS forms.
- Fiesta Bowl charity totaled about $4.65 million through 2009-10, according to the most recent records available. The bowl this year gave away an additional $1 million as a penalty assessed by the BCS after the bowl disclosed widespread financial mismanagement.
- The Rose Bowl donated about $1.9 million to charity.
- Giving totaled just more than $310,000 at the Sugar Bowl, most of that going to restore a city park in the past two fiscal years. The bowl, however, said its financial reports prepared for the Internal Revenue Service are misleading because it gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent years to numerous other causes but didn’t report it as charitable giving.
According to Sugar Bowl spokesman John Sudsbury, the bowl in recent years gave $800,000 for post-Hurricane Katrina renovations and upkeep at a local stadium, $115,000 to the New Orleans Police Department for a crowd-control system, $250,000 for student counseling after the mass shooting at Virginia Tech, and $130,000 to the Southeastern Conference’s postgraduate scholarship program. He added that the Sugar Bowl’s executive committee recently voted to commit $2 million to a major community youth project.
Although the bowls are operated by non-profit groups, they are not required by federal statute to make charitable donations. Still, bowls – the four in the championship series and others – have touted their charitable nature in the past.
Alamo Bowl Chief Executive Derrick Fox appeared before Congress in 2009 during hearings on bowl and BCS financial issues, saying bowls provide tens of millions of dollars to local communities annually.
“Since almost all the postseason bowl games are put on by charitable groups and since up to one-quarter of the proceeds from the games are dedicated to the community, local charities receive tens of millions of dollars every year,” Fox said.
The Republic’s examination of financial records for U.S.-based, non-profit organizations that ran 25 bowl games in 2008-09 and 24 bowl games in 2009-10 doesn’t support Fox’s claims.
The Republic found the non-profits that ran the bowls in 2008-09 generated about $216 million in revenue and gave away $6.4 million, roughly 3 percent of revenues. In 2009-10, the bowls generated about $202 million in revenue and gave away nearly $3.7 million, less than 2 percent.
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)
Friday, September 30, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
An Extraordinary Charity Fraud Gets Lost By Regulators
by Gary Snyder
The media accounts, principally by the St. Petersburg times, of the final months of the U.S. Navy Veterans Association were marked by frantic attempts to fend off reporters and investigators who suspected the charity was a fraud. Though it had reported raising nearly $100 million to assist veterans, the nonprofit's directors were nonexistent, its headquarters nothing more than mail drops. Run out of a dilapidated duplex in Ybor City but soliciting donations nationwide, the group sent much of its money to politicians, not needy veterans. the group's leader, a scruffy 60-something who called himself Commander Bobby Thompson, vanished from view. The last two board members resigned. The group's tricked-out pickup was sold. Private investigators and a PR person were hired. The Navy Veterans' long-time lawyer had severed her relationship with the group and gone to the authorities with serious accusations of wrongdoing. But Florida and federal officials took nearly a month to act on that tip. By the time authorities seized documents from the Clair-Mel home of one of Thompson's associates, some records already had been shredded.
As the the St. Petersburg Times' expose of the Navy Veterans in March 2010 unfolded, Thompson mounted a multipronged offensive intended to rally support and lash back at the Times and its nonprofit owner, the Poynter Institute, according to public records and documents filed in court cases in Florida and Ohio.
• "Brian Reagan," the purported head of the Navy Veterans who proved to be fictitious, filed complaints against Poynter in at least three states, including Florida, saying it was soliciting contributions without being properly registered. No states acted on the complaint.
• The group hired Christopher Szechenyi, a freelance journalist, paying him $24,000 between April and June 2010, according to records. Szechenyi, an adjunct professor of journalism at Emerson College in Boston, drafted letters to the editor on behalf of a Polk County man who received $1,700 from the Navy Veterans for a barbecue at the James A. Haley VA Medical Center in 2009. Although the letters were submitted, there is no evidence they were published in either the Times or the Tampa Tribune. Szechenyi, who previously worked for the Church of Scientology on an unpublished investigation into the St. Petersburg Times, did not return a call and e-mail seeking comment.
• Using another fake name and an accomplice's mailing address, Thompson created a new organization, U.S. Navy Veterans Support Group Inc. According the Navy Veterans website, the "private, for-profit" corporation would take responsibility for the group's online publications. The inaugural column was a lengthy attack on the St. Petersburg Times.
When Florida officials demanded that Thompson's new entity either reply to subpoenas or face fines of $1,000 a day, the group was dissolved.
• In the second week of June, Thompson met in New York City with one of the Navy Veterans' professional fundraisers. His mission, according to Ohio investigators, was to persuade the company to continue soliciting in the face of negative publicity. Despite a strong financial incentive — fundraisers kept 85 to 90 percent of all donations to the nonprofit — Thompson's pleas were rejected.
For more than six months, Helen Mac Murray, the Navy Veterans' general counsel, had been fielding queries from the Times, including one seemingly easy request: Prove that dozens of directors and officers exist. Of 85 officers listed for the group, the Times was only able to find one: Thompson. Mac Murray, who once headed consumer protection for the Ohio Attorney General's Office, said Thompson assured her all officers and members were real. Though she represented the group for four years, Mac Murray later said she only met a few volunteers and never met or spoke to any officials but Thompson.
A few weeks before the Times' first story, Mac Murray hired a private investigator in Ohio, according to an invoice in court files in a case involving the Navy Veterans in Hernando County. The subject: Bobby Charles Thompson. The investigator revealed what he had learned when he tracked a Social Security number that "was supplied as possibly belonging to Bobby Thompson." It belonged instead to a Louisiana man who never appeared to have lived in Florida, the investigator found. Mac Murray recently denied that Thompson had claimed the Social Security number as his own.
Florida's criminal investigation into the Navy Veterans is ongoing, but its civil action has been closed. With Thompson a fugitive, state officials say, there is no one to sue.
Ohio officials, who estimate their state's residents were bilked for more than $2 million by the Navy Veterans, have been the most aggressive in their prosecution of the case. Last month, a Thompson associate, Contreras was sentenced to five years in an Ohio prison after pleading guilty to aggravated theft and money laundering. In a separate civil action, Ohio investigators continue to hunt for clues that could lead to Thompson, who was last seen at an ATM in New York City on June 16, 2010.
This summer, an Ohio judge granted a motion to give authorities access to three e-mail accounts whose owners are believed to have a relationship with Thompson. Investigators said they "may have information pertaining to his whereabouts."
Gary Snyder is the author of the recently published Silence: The Impending Threat to the Charitable Sector and Nonprofits: On the Brink. 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)
The media accounts, principally by the St. Petersburg times, of the final months of the U.S. Navy Veterans Association were marked by frantic attempts to fend off reporters and investigators who suspected the charity was a fraud. Though it had reported raising nearly $100 million to assist veterans, the nonprofit's directors were nonexistent, its headquarters nothing more than mail drops. Run out of a dilapidated duplex in Ybor City but soliciting donations nationwide, the group sent much of its money to politicians, not needy veterans. the group's leader, a scruffy 60-something who called himself Commander Bobby Thompson, vanished from view. The last two board members resigned. The group's tricked-out pickup was sold. Private investigators and a PR person were hired. The Navy Veterans' long-time lawyer had severed her relationship with the group and gone to the authorities with serious accusations of wrongdoing. But Florida and federal officials took nearly a month to act on that tip. By the time authorities seized documents from the Clair-Mel home of one of Thompson's associates, some records already had been shredded.
As the the St. Petersburg Times' expose of the Navy Veterans in March 2010 unfolded, Thompson mounted a multipronged offensive intended to rally support and lash back at the Times and its nonprofit owner, the Poynter Institute, according to public records and documents filed in court cases in Florida and Ohio.
• "Brian Reagan," the purported head of the Navy Veterans who proved to be fictitious, filed complaints against Poynter in at least three states, including Florida, saying it was soliciting contributions without being properly registered. No states acted on the complaint.
• The group hired Christopher Szechenyi, a freelance journalist, paying him $24,000 between April and June 2010, according to records. Szechenyi, an adjunct professor of journalism at Emerson College in Boston, drafted letters to the editor on behalf of a Polk County man who received $1,700 from the Navy Veterans for a barbecue at the James A. Haley VA Medical Center in 2009. Although the letters were submitted, there is no evidence they were published in either the Times or the Tampa Tribune. Szechenyi, who previously worked for the Church of Scientology on an unpublished investigation into the St. Petersburg Times, did not return a call and e-mail seeking comment.
• Using another fake name and an accomplice's mailing address, Thompson created a new organization, U.S. Navy Veterans Support Group Inc. According the Navy Veterans website, the "private, for-profit" corporation would take responsibility for the group's online publications. The inaugural column was a lengthy attack on the St. Petersburg Times.
When Florida officials demanded that Thompson's new entity either reply to subpoenas or face fines of $1,000 a day, the group was dissolved.
• In the second week of June, Thompson met in New York City with one of the Navy Veterans' professional fundraisers. His mission, according to Ohio investigators, was to persuade the company to continue soliciting in the face of negative publicity. Despite a strong financial incentive — fundraisers kept 85 to 90 percent of all donations to the nonprofit — Thompson's pleas were rejected.
For more than six months, Helen Mac Murray, the Navy Veterans' general counsel, had been fielding queries from the Times, including one seemingly easy request: Prove that dozens of directors and officers exist. Of 85 officers listed for the group, the Times was only able to find one: Thompson. Mac Murray, who once headed consumer protection for the Ohio Attorney General's Office, said Thompson assured her all officers and members were real. Though she represented the group for four years, Mac Murray later said she only met a few volunteers and never met or spoke to any officials but Thompson.
A few weeks before the Times' first story, Mac Murray hired a private investigator in Ohio, according to an invoice in court files in a case involving the Navy Veterans in Hernando County. The subject: Bobby Charles Thompson. The investigator revealed what he had learned when he tracked a Social Security number that "was supplied as possibly belonging to Bobby Thompson." It belonged instead to a Louisiana man who never appeared to have lived in Florida, the investigator found. Mac Murray recently denied that Thompson had claimed the Social Security number as his own.
Florida's criminal investigation into the Navy Veterans is ongoing, but its civil action has been closed. With Thompson a fugitive, state officials say, there is no one to sue.
Ohio officials, who estimate their state's residents were bilked for more than $2 million by the Navy Veterans, have been the most aggressive in their prosecution of the case. Last month, a Thompson associate, Contreras was sentenced to five years in an Ohio prison after pleading guilty to aggravated theft and money laundering. In a separate civil action, Ohio investigators continue to hunt for clues that could lead to Thompson, who was last seen at an ATM in New York City on June 16, 2010.
This summer, an Ohio judge granted a motion to give authorities access to three e-mail accounts whose owners are believed to have a relationship with Thompson. Investigators said they "may have information pertaining to his whereabouts."
Gary Snyder is the author of the recently published Silence: The Impending Threat to the Charitable Sector and Nonprofits: On the Brink. 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)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
