Your Rights as a Donor
bona fide charity organizations vs. scams
By law, using false, misleading or incomplete information to obtain financial support constitutes fraud
Not-so-sweet Charities
Charities are meant to serve the common good. To encourage such entities, Congress has honored charities, foundations, and other public service entities with perhaps the greatest benefit that Congress is capable of bestowing: Exemption from the tax laws. And by far, the greatest number of public charities live up to the high level of societal responsibility which they exist to fulfill. Public charities facilitate critically important funding for such things as cancer research, disaster relief, infrastructure development in third-world countries...
... This tax exemption is simply too tempting for the purveyors of tax schemes and shelters to ignore, and so they have devised and will continue to devise strategies to take advantage of the exemption in ways both never contemplated by Congress and which provide the associated charities with relatively nominal benefits, if any benefits at all.
There is a world of difference
Legitimate aid organizations are transparent. Our expenditure, ethics and field operations can be scrutinized to the minute detail. We have to uphold basic law and standards laid out for all charity organizations. Penny for penny, we can be made to account for our effectivity, productivity and cost ratios. Aid organizations outline concrete long-term goals and work from the inside, convincing local governments to uphold the law and basic human rights. We are not allowed to harbor secret agendas like proselytization or recruitment into a New Religious Movement. We use concordant benchmarks and concordant measurements for determining whether or not our long-term goals are met. We work for giving school-age children proper education, for working within social and legal contexts for reducing poverty in populations, for bringing clean water and electricity to villages, for the feeding of the hungry and the creation of locally sustainable food supplies, for immunization and the cure of diseases, etc. Our workers are career professionals who can find work in any number of aid organizations. Many of us are lawyers, doctors, nurses, architects and engineers who chose to pursue humanitarian work.
In contrast, [The Family International's] volunteers will not likely find employment due to their lack of qualifications. They do not have any genuine, long-term humanitarian goals other than to convince everyone in their belief that Jesus' return is overdue and therefore no long-term goals are needed other than preparation for his return.
Is the charity/mission endorsed by any third-party watchdog associations?
Can it stand up to your scrutiny? Under the Donor Bill of Rights, all donors have a right to:
- be informed of the organization's mission, of the way the organization intends to use donated resources, and of its capacity to use donations effectively for their intended purposes.
- be informed of the identity of those serving on the organization's governing board...
(The Family International has had known child abusers ordered by courts never to work with children, still working with children. See for example: "Who is Malaysian Mary?") - have access to the organization's most recent financial statements.
- be assured their gifts will be used for the purposes for which they were given.
- expect that all relationships with individuals representing organizations of interest to the donor will be professional in nature.
- be informed whether those seeking donations are volunteers (or) employees of the organization...
- feel free to ask questions when making a donation and to receive prompt, truthful and forthright answers.
The Family Care Foundation (FCF)
Thinking of donating to the Family Care Foundation (FCF)? There is much more than meets the eye when it comes to this organization. Although legal firewalls have been set up, the FCF is inextricably linked to The Family International. It was granted charity status based on misleading information given during its application process. By law, using false, misleading or incomplete information to obtain financial support constitutes fraud. Just how fraudulent the FCF and its "volunteers" have been are a matter for investigation.
No accountability—The FCF does not meet the requirements of the US National BBB.org
The FCF does not live up to accountability standards—it has not yet met the requirements of the US National BBB (Better Business Bureau) org for transparency and full disclosure regarding ethical practices, cost ratios, accumulated assets (wealth), conflict-of-interest affiliations, salary and compensation ratios, what is non-profit vs. business, etc:
NONDISCLOSURE: This Charity did not provide requested information. As a result, the Better Business Bureau cannot determine if it meets standards.
If it's anything related to the Family Care Foundation or The Family International*:
The bottom line is, you have a right to know:
- Is most of your money really being spent on the "missionaries" themselves?
- What kind of genuine humanitarian work with long-term goals are they doing?
- Is the charity/mission really just a front organization for The Family International?
- Will you be supporting an abusive cult with leaders in hiding from prosecution by giving to them?
- Is their humanitarian/charity work tainted by their primary agenda of recruitment for The Family International?
- Do they misrepresent themselves and defraud the public in order to raise funds for themselves?
- Do they tithe to The Family International (via the FCF or otherwise)?
- Can they assure you that no portion of your donation will end up financing projects of members of The Family International?
- Can they provide you with yearly income and expenditure reports to show how your donations are disbursed? (all legitimate NGOs will provide this)
- Do they give stock PR answers to avoid culpability for funding/supporting The Family International's past and present harmful practices?