Is this the truck they use to carry the money to the bank?
Oklahoma City police have begun an investigation at Feed The Children after a private investigator found evidence three offices had been illegally bugged.
The investigator “found remnants of wiretapping devices above the ceilings” during an almost six-hour sweep Wednesday evening of the charity’s Oklahoma City headquarters, according to a police report.
The Christian relief organization is widely known because of its heart-wrenching televised appeals for funds to feed starving children. It claims to raise more than $1 billion in donations a year.
The charity has been in turmoil for months because of a lawsuit over who was in charge there. The lawsuit was settled this month when founder Larry Jones agreed to give up operational control of the charity. He continues to work for Feed The Children as a spokesman and fundraiser.
A more accurate description of what the turmoil has been about – is who is in charge of the money.
Eideard 
I don’t know if I could actually justify this reaction with any sort of valid logic but I automatically assume organizations with tear-jerking names like ‘Feed The Children’ are criminal enterprises and acting on instinct alone, I wouldn’t give them a penny.
I have the same sort of reaction to organizations trying to sell me things, who have words like ‘Global’, ‘Universal’, ‘Worldwide’ etcetera in their names.
It’s just a quirk, I guess.
You’re not alone.
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As a side note… here are the salaries for the top names in Feed The Children:
Larry Jones – President – $228,334
Frances Jones – Executive VP – $176,699
Larri Sue Jones – Vice President – $155,327
Feed Who?
Btw… is this a family charity? All Jones’…
I’m always fascinated by how much it costs to be charitable:
Expenses
Program Expenses ————– $455,657,732
Administrative Expenses ——- $13,612,829
Fundraising Expenses ———- $73,079,762
Total Functional Expenses —– $542,350,323
Just make sure you deposit a little chunk of that money to your friends and family… The Children’s Health Fund:
Irwin Redlener – President, Co-Founder – $200,000
Karen Redlener – Executive Director, Co-Founder – $100,000
So, a tip to everyone who’s unemployed… start your own charity… make sure it’s on a popular theme, such as saving kids, fight cancer, spread Jesus etc.
“So, a tip to everyone who’s unemployed… start your own charity… make sure it’s on a popular theme, such as saving kids, fight cancer, spread Jesus etc.”
Save the wildlife. Save the strays. Stop animal abuse. Stop global warming. Save the earth and the environment. (Charities related to climate change and the environment are biiiiig money makers.) Provide health care for sick kids. “Advance progressive causes.” Defend civil rights (Southern Poverty Law Center is pretty lucrative). If you want a real kick check out the famous Sierra Club and the Sierra Club Foundation in Charity Navigator.
The top salaries at Feed the Children for the president, vice president and executive president are less than the salary for the president of the American Red Cross. If you look through that site you’ll see that most of the executive staff of charities make a handsome salary. They probably should given that they are overseeing companies measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars, some even measured in the billions. BTW, the paper you’re linking to has been after Larry Jones for 10 years and wanted him gone, but it has gone out of its way to say the charity itself has done tremendous work. Its a shame Jones behavior has repeatedly tarnished that and that he couldn’t understand that.
True, but the American Red Cross CEO stands for 0.01% of the total expenses, whereas the three people in Feed the Children stands for 0.09%.
They probably should given that they are overseeing companies measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars, some even measured in the billions.
Oh, they really “earned” it… 😛 Seriously, they’re not running a business… they’re running a charity.
The ARC is just one example and if you dug down into their bureaucracy you would find top execs piling up far more than 0.9%. There is a reason it has a 2 star rating. There are lots (and lots) of charities with good efficiency ratings and 3 stars or more at Charity Navigator whose top execs make much more than that on smaller budgets. And a charity is a business. If you’re doing a billion a year in revenue you have to have people who know what they’re doing. You don’t have to pay them millions a year but they aren’t making millions a year. And if you’re the president of a charity doing tens of millions or hundreds of millions or a billion or more a year and you aren’t the one who knows how to run all of that then you hire someone who does. You can see that in charities with presidents or CEOs who “only” make a hundred thousand or so and sometimes less, but then their executive staff make much more. Charities have payroll, legal issues, marketing and fundraising costs, and all of the other expenses and daily operating concerns of any other business. I am not saying Larry Jones is the highly skilled executive type. I think Larry Jones should have been gone long ago. I am saying that people at the top of the executive corp at charities make good money and it’s not just because they’re scamming people.
“I am saying that people at the top of the executive corp at charities make good money and it’s not just because they’re scamming people.”
Sure it is.
First of all, no-one is worth that much money for anything, not even the President of the United States. People who accept such salaries, especially from ‘charities’, are nothing but greedy pigs.
Second, if the charity was worth anything, they’d take a lot less to run it and let the donations got to the needy recipients as intended. Essentially, they’re stealing huge amounts of the charitable donations to act as simple administrators.
Third, it’s not a business because businesses exist only to make a profit. Charities beg money from good people, so they can distribute it to the unfortunate needy.
Fourth, we have no idea how much loot they’re sneaking out the back door. $540 million in operating expenses? Right! I’d like to audit those books.
You think you have to pay administrators millions to run a charity?
I have nothing to do with the Salvation Army but I know every cent you donate goes to their programs. The administrators work for free.
In the wee hours of a February morning, the ONLY people I ever saw out on the downtown streets at -30F, feeding people hot meals and providing blankets were members of the Sally Ann.
Just exactly where were your multi-million dollar administrators then? They were warm and cuddly, asleep in their mansions.
Like everything else, there’s good and bad and in-between charities. Still, most charities are little more than scams.
Fully agree.