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In Reply to: Family Care Foundation posted by archivist on September 30, 2003 at 15:31:59:
I'm a Combined Ohio Charities campaign coordinator for the office where I work, and I take the charitable giving thing pretty seriously. I'm also concerned about the service delivery implications of including "faith-based" human service organizations in federal and state social service registries, so I pay close attention to this sort of thing.
Family Care Foundation got on the Combined Federal Charities registry through affiliation with Christian Charities USA. According to its promotional literature, CC-USA is a federation made up of 25 of the "finest" Christian service organizations in the United States. I sent them (Christian Charities USA) an email raising the issue of FCF's connection to The Family/Children of God.
Thus far, Christian Charities USA has not responded to my email. However, I also sent an email to officers who sit on the Advisory Board for Combined Federal Charities (CFC), as well as operations staff for CFC at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). I received a very supportive response from Matt Howe, Executive Director for the National Alliance for Choice in Giving (NACG), based in Portland, Maine. NACG is a major political player in the "faith-based initiative" being promoted by the Bush Administration.
Given the fact that there are ten accountability standards a faith-based organization must meet in order to be listed in Combined Federal Charities, I was somewhat astonished that a cheesy, spurious organization like FCF could make the grade. Because I doubt FCF could meet the accountability standards, Christian Charities USA becomes somewhat suspect. According to Matt Howe, Christian Charities USA is actually part of a larger federation of charities administered by Maguire and Maguire, Inc., of Corte Madeira, California. It turns out that the Maguire federation of charities all have the same mailing address, accountant, etc.
In his email, Howe concludes: "It's a clever business model developed by Maguire to capitalize on the eligibility guidelines of the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC). We understand OPM has been reviewing this business model and will be issuing a report on their findings next month."
Howe also gave me the name and email address of the OPM administrator with oversight responsibility for charity fraud. I also sent that person an email.
Finally, I sent all of the information regarding FCF, Christian Charities USA, and Maguire, Inc., to an investigative reporter at the Orange County Register. These folks have won journalism awards for investigating and exposing charity fraud, and all charities involved in this chain of related agencies have a fiscal office in California. Thus far, no response to my email to the OC Register.
If it appears wise to the coordinators of this board, I can post the email addresses of OPM, CFC, and Orange County Register staff that I’ve written to thus far. I don’t think it would hurt for these folks to hear from someone besides me, particularly if that person has first-hand information regarding Family Care Foundation.
