Here We Go Again...

by Gary Snyder

An affiliate with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Gallup, (NM) mostly survives on donations. St. Bonaventure Indian Mission and School saw more than $9 million in donations flow in over a four-year period. But almost none of the money went to the mission. Instead, school officials acknowledge that the mission owes more than $5 million to Quadriga Art. St. Bonaventure signed a contract with Quadriga Art in 2008, according to internal financial statements.

The U.S. Senate Finance Committee is raising questions about how Quadriga officials raised money for the Disabled Veterans National Foundation in which it raised nearly $70 million in donations since 2007 and little of the proceeds went to the charity. 

In another instance, a Los Angeles-based charity called Help the Children raised roughly $800,000 in donations by the Quadriga campaign and charity kept about $32,000: less than 5%.

In addition to raising funds and keeping them, Quadriga's internal financial documents show that at least 11 charities now owe the company millions of dollars, a result of direct mail campaigns failing to bring in enough money from donations to cover the cost of the campaigns themselves.

Federal and state regulators are all over this matter, but only as a result of CNN's dogged investigations.




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 (2006) Silence: The Impending Threat to the Charitable Sector (2011)