A couple of days ago the New York attorney general's office announced that it had ordered Donald Trump's personal charity to cease fundraising immediately. It had determined that the Donald J. Trump Foundation was violating state law by soliciting donations without proper authorization. The foundation had 15 days to register with the state as a charity that solicits money, as well as to provide financial audit reports for any year it had solicited money.
James G. Sheehan, head of the charities bureau in the office of Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, wrote that if Trump's foundation does not comply, it will be considered "a continuing fraud upon the people of New York."
The Trump Foundation has come under increasing scrutiny by reporter David A. Fahrenthold of the Washington Post, who over the past several months has tried to shed light on the Republican presidential nominee's assertion that he had given millions of dollars to charities, and to which organizations. Among many discoveries Fahrenthold found that "The Donald" has stopped giving his own foundation any personal money in 2008. With its founding in 1987, Trump himself was the foundation's only source of money. Between 1987 and 2008, he donated $5.4 million to his own foundation. Since 2008, the foundation has received donations from a wide variety of people and organizations: Vince and Linda McMahon (pro wrestling executives), NBC Universal, Norwegian Cruise Lines, Comedy Central, Richard Ebers (NY businessman) and others.
In a statement the Trump campaign spokesperson said the foundation "intends to cooperate fully with the investigation."
This news story brought back a long forgotten memory. In the winter of 1978-79, I was one of eight people in Pittsburgh who worked to open a soup kitchen in the Hill District. The steel mills had begun to shut down, and unemployment ran high in the city. We were determined to help people with a free meal who were on the streets or on the margins. The Jubilee Soup Kitchen opened on November 11, 1979. Sister Liguori Rossner, our first executive director, has recalled that at the time the soup kitchen had only $9.39 in its checking account.
We had begun raising funds during the winter in order to open in a leased (for $1 a year) building owned by the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Pittsburgh on Wyandotte Street, off Fifth Avenue. Over the next two years we increased our fundraising, with personal appeals to our friends and neighbors and churches, and with an annual variety show and dinner at St. Anne's Parish in Castle Shannon. My friend, and president of our founding committee, Father Jim Garvey was associate pastor there, and with the help of my cousin Rudy Richtar, who did the cooking, and the late Jude Puhl, who directed the show, we filled the school auditorium, ran a 50/50 raffle and raised some money (how much I've forgotten).
What I haven't forgotten was one meeting of our organizing committee. After two years it was clear Jubilee was a going concern. Sister Liguori was our leader (and only paid employee), volunteers continued to come and help, food purveyors made donations when we begged and we were helping people. But we were not legal. We took in donations and paid our bills--but we were violating the commonwealth of Pennsylvania's laws regarding a "public charity." At this meeting, one member of our founding committee vehemently opposed filing the necessary papers to become a 501 (c)(3) not-for-profit corporation. In Father Jim's words, he was an "anarchist," and wanted nothing to do with supporting corrupt government. He only wanted to help homeless and near-homeless people by feeding them.
The rest of us wanted to do the same thing--but we didn't want to go to jail, or at least, not be arrested for violating the law. Jubilee was beginning to get into the newspapers. We were public and a going concern. Getting publicity brought more offers for volunteering and donations. We didn't want to shut down our good works, or be accused of failing our brothers and sisters who came between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. for a free meal. So our committee voted (with one nay) in favor of using a lawyer friend's pro bono offer to prepare the necessary papers to become legal. Our anarchist friend then left the committee, which became the board of directors of Jubilee Association, Inc.
Over the years Jubilee has grown in its service to the poor. In 1980 the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank was started on the second floor, above the soup kitchen. Later Jubilee expanded its services to helping guests (not clients) find jobs, get health services, receive in-home delivery, and help families with day care and parent education programs. I left the board of directors in 1993, after 14 years, when I became a pastor on the North Side and could not find the time to continue my volunteer help. But others blessedly continue the ministry.
That decision to incorporate, with its paperwork, audits and legalization, has been vindicated in the lives helped over the decades by the Jubilee Association, Inc. That decision also confirmed in me the understanding that public charity has to be accountable to its many audiences: the clients served, the generous benefactors, donors and volunteers, its own mission statement and listing of values, and finally the general public. Public charities are accountable. I have supported that value every time I became a director of a not-for-profit organization.
Maybe the Donald J. Trump Foundation needs to learn that lesson too.
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