I specialize in NPOs. I did this day in & day out for decades. I know what is legal & what is not.
I asked:
1. Is this the highest & best use of patient time & resources?
NO
2. Was there complete transparency with patients?
NO
3. Were patients centered throughout?
NO
Keeping $ after the project was fully funded for > a month & not informing patients is not ok.
A Story: A college student loses both parents in a wildfire & needs tuition & housing to finish school to be able to support his minor siblings.
A GFM to raise 50k is created.
Family & friends also devastated by the wildfire do without to give because children will go into foster care unless we help because the system has abandoned them & applications for help have been sought.
Daily tearful posts of why this family must be kept together.
People ignore their own essential needs. Medical care ignored. Donors take from their own families to keep this family together because no one was coming to save them.
How can you not help these poor orphans?
People work themselves sick supporting this GFM.
Meanwhile a charity where the family applied to green lit this application long before the GFM was launched. This well known highly reputable charity is known for fully funding their grants.
Meanwhile, GFM opens and continues to raise funds from struggling family & friends. Never telling them that the application was successful & the need will be met. This family will have everything they need but not everything they want.
Funding was disbursed in July while GFM continues on because donors are told that the need is critical and if we don’t help this family will lose everything. It’s up to family and friends to do this. We have to this family and keep them housed & together. Only grassroots efforts.
The GFM org is aware in writing & conservations throughout the summer that the funding is in porcess for this family. Their committee votes in June. It’s in their minutes as a NPO. Charity thinks it is great that additional funds are raised unaware of the donors’ dire situations.
GFM organizers and family never tell anyone that the critical need has been met. Donors who took from their own families were never asked if they were ok with the money now going to go to the family to pay for a nanny after school so that others didn’t have to volunteer.
Maybe donors would still give anyways if they were given the choice. But they were never given a choice or told any of this until the money was gone.
The need for this family is no longer urgent but other wants would be good to be met but no longer CRITICAL.
Donors who needed food, medical care, housing and to meet their own basic needs. Donors who spent precious time raising funds. Donors whose health worsened because they spent spoons and resources they did not have to spare.
Donors who were never given a choice.
Back to this TL:
Transparency should be above & beyond & throughout.
Lies of omission are still lies.
The ends does not justify the means.
How you do something matters as much as the goal.
Restricted donations LEGALLY must go to its stated purpose.
It is illegal under the IRS guidelines to redirect donor restricted donations without explicit donor approval.
$159k was received by Dr. Johan’s receiving institution in mid July from Polybio.
There was no critical project that needed patient grassroots efforts.
The critical funding needs were fully met and satisfied more than 45 days prior to patient funds being wired.
This is what patients should have been informed of in the interest of transparency that this was not closing the patient fundraising shortfall.
It was a done deal.
Is that ok with you?
Donors should always be centered and given a voice AND a choice.
The onus is on any org to bend over backwards to communicate clearly and transparently every step of the way.
Dismissing donor concerns and questions is not transparent.
@threadreaderapp please roll up
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When I get too concerned about the Lady Gaga’s and long Covid influencers.
I go back to Charles Schultz. I copied this because it’s important.
Possibly the Most important thing you'll read this Year...
The following is the philosophy of Charles Schulz, the creator of the 'Peanuts' comic strip.
You don't have to actually answer the questions. Just ponder on them. Just read it straight through, and you'll get the point. 1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners. 3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America pageant. 4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize. 5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.