Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History

Footnote:  Taxation + Tax-Exempt Sector: “Not quite the level-playing field facilitator…”

The private, tax-exempt sector can’t even be seen as a whole without significant and ongoing attempts to follow tax returns (audited financial statements, often in rare supply, are also necessary). Unfortunately (?–is it really fortune/happenstance, or coincidental?), structure and access to databases of IRS tax returns are designed, organized, and controlled by the same tax-exempt sector (increasingly, merging into each other, as “Foundation Center” recently did by acquiring “Guidestar” and now labeling it “Candid”)  Or, The Urban Institute did by re-structuring its previous data base “NCCS” (National Center for Charitable Statistics), which I just revisited after having noted a year or so back that it’d been shut down; readers were directed to just a few alternate providers).  IRS.gov holds much, but doesn’t upload several years worth of returns, and not all organizations that file or once filed are searchable on its Exempt Organization Search list.

Aaron Swartz Arrest, Trial, Awards .. from “theFamousPeople.com,” viewed June 27, 2019) Click image to enlarge.

I’ve posted on this from time to time. I read Guidestar (formerly Philanthropic Research) and Foundation Center (and The Urban Institute’s) tax returns.. I’ve talked (blogged) about on-line platforms claimed as sponsors by other nonprofits (GiveWell, JustGive, etc.) …. I’ve talked (blogged) about the problems with not just incompatible interstate but also basically unreliable databases, BOTH public and private, and the lack of even a pretense by the USDOJ in providing one (that is ONE) database for its distributed grants. ### (See right below this footnote)

Years ago, I also looked at the JSTOR (history, tax returns) organizations… remember, when, and why outstandingly talented* Aaron Swartz (MIT, invented Reddit, 1986-2013), as reported, committed suicide while facing multiple federal felony charges and prospect of 50 years in federal prison for improper downloads? (*See also family background, and private education, but even so…).

… Designers (that is, developers, builders, whoever undertakes to finance the database library projects) decide what IS and what is NOT measured, data entry standards, and who gets to see what, and if so, at what cost….which reports can be run from it, etc.  Meanwhile, I’m seeing rampant (the word fits!) problems in basic data entry of names, organizations, and symptoms of very strange redirections of basic organization name searches, etc.   Read this blog long enough or far back enough; when examples show up,  I call attention to it.

Recently I’ve been noticing how and where community foundations (with significant clout and usually, assets, DAFs (Donor Advised Funds, etc.) fail to show respect by publishing their lists of grantees (if they’re filing Forms 990, that’d be, after 2008, IRS, Schedule I, grants to domestic (meaning, in the USA) organizations and governments (a) consistently and (b) in visible-to-the-naked-eye format ( c) in the IRS-requested format, which is many rows per page, not a thousand pages (electronic) of only two to three grantees per page and every 3rd or 4th row another column heading — reducing the ability to scan or browse.

Even if all involved were voluntarily showing respect, and playing “nice,” it’s still not really traceable, or I believe, being tracked or even sensed, accounting-wise.  The systems are just “there” doing their thing, year after year..  No working human being in his or her right mind could assess or monitor it sufficiently.  For those who may have a mind to,** for funders or grantees it seems “no big deal” to simply change a legal business name, or claim to have changed it (affecting what a person might use as a name search) when in fact it means “acquired a dba.”  **(I’m one, but the “in her right mind” descriptor may change if I keep it up for much longer….)   (Recent example found:  “CharityWatch.org” where “CharityWatch is a dba, the legal name of the California entity with a Chicago address is American Institute for Philanthropy, Inc.).  I tweeted about it June 25). Other phenomena (behaviors) include closing down one business entity and starting up another similarly named but not identical entity — while maintaining the website as if there was no real transition in corporate (charity) identity. Or having related organizations all using the same website, but the website doesn’t exactly reveal this — only the tax returns (including ones you wouldn’t know to look for unless you read the main charity’s tax return which mentions them — or sometimes doesn’t — on a Schedule R or otherwise.  Large grants which are alleged to have been delivered often do not show up as received on the exact grantee’s tax returns for the same time span.

The examples are endless.  I’ve read thousands of tax returns (not keeping count!) in the past decade, and with each one, typically also look through any entity’s website (usually searching for a business identity to find whether a tax return exists and who, in fact, it represents). .. The preceding paragraph is just off the top of my head.

Footnote “The Clapham Group”

(There are some tax returns in two tables below this light-yellow background-color section.  They go with it, but  were added after the move and have no background color or special borders.  The third footnote is light-blue and easy to distinguish.  The tax returns simply look up organizations named in the biographical summary of The Clapham Group Principal.).

From “The Clapham Group” “About” “Team” [scroll down for] “Mark Rodgers” description which didn’t display well (interfering pop-ups).  I just wanted to know who it was, so copied & pasted the text in order to read it. Notice prominent Christian, “faith-based” references.  Interesting.

Mark Rodgers, Principal (The Clapham Group) (context: he’s listed on Buffett-founded (Early Childhood Fund) ‘Alliance for Early Success’ in Nebraska). Board members there not paid except Exec. Director (Lisa Klein) as I recall.. 

Mark Rodgers is the Principal of The Clapham Group a company that seeks to influence culture upstream of the political arena.  Mark served as the third-ranking Republican leadership staffer in the U.S. Senate for six years overseeing strategic planning and strategic communications.  He also served as a high profile chief of staff to Senator Rick Santorum, working on Capitol Hill for a total of 16 years.  He was known on the Hill for his work on such issues as poverty alleviation and global AIDS, as well as protecting life at its most vulnerable stages.

Mark is a published writer and a speaker at large and small gatherings on the topics of faith and public life, culture and caring for the least of these.  His work over the years included an outreach to “culture creators,” and he has worked closely with artists such as Bono, Patty Heaton and The Fray.  He still collects pop culture artifacts, as the walls of his office attest.

Mark is a social entrepreneur, and enjoys finding ways to help people “do good while doing well.” In the 1980s, Mark worked at the Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation, a faith-based organization committed to addressing the social needs of Pittsburgh from a Christian perspective.  He also founded the National Institute of Lay Education (NILE), which developed adult education curriculum to encourage reflecting Christian involvement in public life.  He earned a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering from Penn State, and attended Trinity Episcopal School for ministry. He is currently a Policy Fellow with the American Conservative Union Foundation. Mark is married to Leanne, and the proud father of four children.

FOOTNOTE “Clarification” When I say “backed by a person,” referring to someone with a human face likely to be profiled on Forbes Magazine or the news, I also include and refer to the usual delivery method: that person’s excess corporate wealth or some of it is, of course funneled into tax-exempt foundations (whether filing 990PFs as private foundation or 990s as public charity | see IRS.gov for official definitions) or several of them formed over time).  The tax-exempt foundations are typically run, controlled or funded by the person or their heirs and then circulate their grants, programmings, and shared investment platforms among others who agree with them.  The more foundations and better paid their officers (not all directors take pay — but they can cite the foundations in their biographies) or investment managers (!), the greater the powerhouse.  Add to this, pulling and blending in public revenues (also ongoing) from government entities, there is a “food chain” of tax-exempt entities feeding BOTH each others, certain individuals which run them, and/or the businesses (consultancies, management, etc.) which contract with them.

All of which brings up my question, is it possible to even live, work or function safely, NOT tax-exempt (which most of the population in any developed country such as the USA is) without seeking to dominate the global or national landscape, anywhere BUT as a microbe somewhere on that food chain, and hierarchy …

How is it possible to refuse to be treated collectively, like half-grown children, by the public/private visionary collaborative planners and leaders, without joining them and treating others similarly? I’m in the US, and the concept of crawling up to either agencies or nonprofits after what I already went through as a (battered) wife and mother, makes my skin crawl, still.  Crawling and asking for justice, food, or even safety so as to be able to safely work for  wages for food (and housing) is not, and should not be, the natural state of humanity.  

And I am going to have to do it again, this week to ASK for help from people entrusted with helping me, knowing the alternative is to fight the same (and others aligned) to wrest control of it back — in a corrupt system and without the financial resources for any fight.  I just used resources last year for FLIGHT to a less expensive space and safe place.  I should be, at this moment FIGHTING (legally) not WRITING (in public interest) — or, in so many words, begging for enough for the very short-term, basic needs.  They are two entirely different modes and mindsets.  

If you don’t do the drill-downs and don’t translate the PR into economic (operating entities) terms, which can seem like a foreign language — although it certainly isn’t to those involved running such networks,   rough experiences in life or no rough experiences, without doing this, you have no concept of the scope and the depth  of spin in each succeeding round of program promotion… or the level of betrayal of public trust and public interest … now routine practice in public institutions collaborating and consolidating operations with each other and private funders, more and more each year.  As I have been saying for several years now.