{"id":32857,"date":"2012-11-15T02:02:48","date_gmt":"2012-11-15T06:02:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=32857"},"modified":"2012-11-15T10:24:56","modified_gmt":"2012-11-15T14:24:56","slug":"a-really-excellent-charity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=32857","title":{"rendered":"A “Really Excellent” Charity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charities are good things.\u00a0 They provide a way to help those who need help, without getting Big Brother (AKA \u201cthe Government\u201d) involved.<\/p>\n

And giving to charities is good, too.\u00a0 Without folks willing to give, there wouldn\u2019t be too many charities.<\/p>\n

But if you\u2019re going to give to a charity, you probably should steer clear of those run by people who did time for kidnapping.\u00a0 Ditto those where less than 9% of donations end up actually going to the charity, with about 85% going instead to a telemarketing\/advertising agency.\u00a0 And those which have their official \u201cheadquarters\u201d located in a vacant house owned by the charity’s founder.<\/p>\n

Think I\u2019m MSU (Making Stuff Up)?\u00a0 Think again.\u00a0 All of the things I\u2019ve described above pertain to the Massachusetts Veterans Emergency Fund, founded by Gerald Anacleto<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That \u201ccharity\u201d took in close to $470k in 2010 and 2011.\u00a0 From that, the charity received just over $40k.<\/p>\n

Interestingly enough, both Anacleto and the marking firm he contracted are required to report the percentages retained by marketing to the Massachusetts AG.\u00a0 But they\u2019re apparently telling folks that “100% goes to veterans\u201d \u2013 when the typical \u201ccut\u201d for telemarketers raising funds is around 55%.<\/p>\n

At least one complaint has been made to the Massachusetts Stat AG about the Massachusetts Veterans Emergency Fund.\u00a0 Nothing was done.<\/p>\n

And for some reason, the Massachusettes AG – Marsha Coakley \u2013 just doesn\u2019t seem to want to discuss the matter.\u00a0 Hmmmm.<\/p>\n

Gotta love Massachusetts.\u00a0 Apparently it\u2019s OK there to lie about more than just phantom Native American ancestry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charities are good things.\u00a0 They provide a way to help those who need help, without getting Big Brother (AKA \u201cthe Government\u201d) involved. And giving to charities is good, too.\u00a0 Without folks willing to give, there wouldn\u2019t be too many charities. But if you\u2019re going to give to a charity, you probably should steer clear of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[155],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shitbags"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ozh1-8xX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}