Back from Haiti and in tears as gossips swirls around his Friends Of Yele charity. I read this on line: “The Haiti earthquake has already triggered hundreds of thousands of donations to musician Wyclef Jean’s charitable foundation, which expects to raise upwards of $1 million a day in the disaster’s wake. However, Internal Revenue Service records show the group has a lackluster history of accounting for its finances, and that the organization has paid the performer and his business partner at least $410,000 for rent, production services, and Jean’s appearance at a benefit concert.”
Similar stuff has appeared in the mainstream. Of course, if you are pocketing, in one way or another, 25% of the money you raise, you are hardly a bad charity.
People expect a level of efficiency in charities that simply isn’t realistic.
Wycliff has been the face of Haitian philanthropy long before this disaster and I have zero doubt that he is doing the right thing. If you can’t accept that some charity goes to expenses (and payola and a million other corrptions and pay offs) don’t give. My Dad used to go put the money he wanted to give in cash and we used to walk around the ghetto’s handing out the money in cash.
I remember walking through the camps surrounding by PLO soldiers with rifles and into a building. My dad would only give money to women and children (he didn’t want it spent on weapons or being given back to the eternal goverment. He gave (the equvalent of) a buck for a child and two bucks for a woman. A young girl came up for a third time in an hour… I whispered to my Dad we had seen her before, he whispered to me to be quiet and gave her another dollar.
Since Haiti has no economy anymore I’m guessing that wouldn’t work.