Don’t Laugh Until You Cry

Posted by on . 2 comments.

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Should someone who thinks you can get AIDS from tears really have his own AIDS charity? Apparently not:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist‘s AIDS charity paid nearly a half-million dollars in consulting fees to members of his political inner circle, according to tax returns providing the first financial accounting of the presidential hopeful’s non-profit.
The returns for World of Hope Inc., obtained by The Associated Press, also show the charity raised the lion’s share of its $4.4 million from just 18 sources. They gave between $97,950 and $267,735 each to help fund Frist’s efforts to fight AIDS.
The tax forms, filed nine months after they were first due, do not identify the 18 major donors by name.

It’s almost hard to remember that just 12 months ago, Frist was a credible threat to become the next President. Worst year ever.

Comments

  1. Jim Battle says:
    December 19, 2005 at 2:59 pm

    To be fair to the man, you should recognize that if they spent only 10-15% of their receipts on overhead, they are doing quite well as compared to other charities.

    The bigger aspect of it is the second point you hit, that it came from a very small number of donors, giving rise to suspicions that perhaps the contributions were more than just for charity, and that the paperwork was filed so reluctantly.

  2. matt says:
    December 19, 2005 at 3:22 pm

    They collected $4.4 million and spent $3 million (they say) on charitable causes. I get 32% overhead. Still better than some, but not very good. But:

    World of Hope gave $3 million it raised to charitable AIDS causes, such as Africare and evangelical Christian groups with ties to Republicans — Franklin Graham’s Samaritan Purse and the Rev. Luis Cortes’ Esperanza USA, for example.

    If they gave all their money to other organizations, what did their overhead really go for? All they were doing was repackaging donations, so why did they need 32% in overhead? And why did such a significant portion of said overhead go to Frist’s political advisors?

    This is straight up money laundering.