Friday, January 18, 2008

Help the Veterans

I've often said that some non-profit entrepreneurs make more money than many of their more crass brethren who work for businesses. We've seen several of them (e.g., United way, Concurrent Technology) over the past few years. Roger Chapin is another one of those who raises more money for himself than for the veterans he claims to serve.

Chapin runs two 'charities' aimed at helping veterans: Help Hospitalized Veterans and Coalition to Support America's Heroes. Of the funds he collected from his various direct mail campaigns, how much do you think went to veterans? Would you believe 25%? Over a half million went to compensating him and his wife. $100,000 went to the Medal of Freedom Winner and war hero Tommy Franks. $17,000 went to membership in a country club, $340,000 was spent on meals, hotels and entertainment. A million was loaned to the arch-conservative direct mail king, Richard Viguerie.

1 comment:

Flimsy Sanity said...

One place to snoop into local charities is at http://www.melissadata.com/Lookups/np.asp?zip=59007&submit1=Submit

Another big non-profit fraud is the think tanks like the Heritage Foundation.