How to Report a Fake Charitable Organization??

[DYNAGOD]

im really itching to see where all the money goes in a couple organizations. form what i understand the federal goverment mandates that they have this information readily available to the public.
i would very much like to pursue this but have no idea how and a google search only yielded a paysite..
surely in order to be considered readily available they dont mean at a charge..
any help would be greatly appreciated

[fredster]

It has to be in the irs.gov

[DYNAGOD]

im certain this place is a fraud.. i need to figure out how to report a fruad charity

Stuttering Foundation of America,
3100 Walnut Grove Road,
Suite 603, P.O. Box 11749,
Memphis, TN 38111-0749
http://www.stuttersfa.org

and the sad part is they are very mainstream and likely recieve millions annually in donations.

This is the letter i wrote to the Tennesse Department of State who handles charitable organizations:
==========================================

Hello,
My name is Richard G. and I am writing you in regards to a non-profit organization located in Memphis, TN. The foundation in question being:

Stuttering Foundation of America,
3100 Walnut Grove Road,
Suite 603, P.O. Box 11749,
Memphis, TN 38111-0749
http://www.stuttersfa.org

 They claim on their website to be "the largest - and the first - nonprofit charitable organization in the world working towards the prevention and improved treatment of stuttering." However i cannot find them in either your List of Registered Charities:
http://www.state.tn.us/sos/charity/co-reg.pdf

or your List of Exempt Charities:
http://www.state.tn.us/sos/charity/co-exempt.pdf

What throws up red flags for me inparticular is their audit statement:
http://www.stuttersfa.org/audit.htm

For one its over 2 years old, but it shows expenses for things that couldnt possibly be true, For example,

 Maintenance of a website and toll free hotline: 99,902.00$
( I host and maintain seven websites and have a toll free hotline, they cost me less than 20.00$ a month)

 Creation, production, printing and distribution of educational materials: 556,589.00$
(They offer about 12 very brief and extremely uninformative PDF brochures on their website. they are the same brochures they have been offering for years. Even if in some bizzarro paralell universe those things cost a over a half million dollars to make, they dont make new ones every year...)

there is more on that site..

Also when doing a whois search on their web domain, the information provided is erroneous. phone numbers like 999-999-9999 and 123-123-1234.. I would imagine as a non-profit,disclosure of valid and correct intel would be a prerequisite.

on their index page:
 "We are the largest - and the first - nonprofit charitable organization in the world working towards the prevention and improved treatment of stuttering, reaching over a million people annually."
however on their audit page it clearly states:  The Stuttering Foundation of America is a private operating foundation which expends its funds on its own programs and does not make grants to other institutions.

I would imagine its hard to work twords the prevention and improved treatment of stuttering when all of your money never makes it to a single research project.

I am a stutterer for 30 years, and each and every day i pray for progress in this field. however this site is extremely mainstream in the stuttering community and many many people i would imagine donate heavily and often. The thought that this money may be doing nothing more than lining the pocket of some individual is quite infuriating,espeically under the guise of a non-profit...
 Any information or assitance you could offer in investigating this matter would be greatly appreciated.

[HaRuMaN]

That looks extremely shady...

[Stingray]

You can report it to me. I run a non-profit organization that handles reporting fake charities. You can send donations to my paypal account.

-S

[Ken Layton]

Contact the investigative or consumer reporter at your local tv stations. They love this kind of stuff and it won't cost you any money.

[DYNAGOD]

Contact the investigative or consumer reporter at your local tv stations. They love this kind of stuff and it won't cost you any money.

just did
http://www1.whdh.com/newsteam/?id=19

and i reposted it to the BBB charitable giving section.

hmmmmmm, where else....

[fredster]

Ask moveon.org

[daeven]

Send John Stossel at ABC an EMail.  He was/is a stutterer, and might be interested to know.

[DYNAGOD]

did it 

[DYNAGOD]

despite the fact that shes not listed as a non-profit in her state, thw 990 is listed thru northstar.
..
very,very  suspect, and sadly some very deep pockets making some very substantial donations that pay for nothing but her waste...
glad to see that my stuttering is paying for her car and insurance..
and her 100,000.00 a year webhosting plan...

[DrewKaree]

The audit that's 2 years old...not for certain, but I seem to remember that being a reasonable time-frame for stuff like that for non-profits, so that may not be the tell-tale sign you may think it to be, but everything else seems to point to there being something worth looking into.

On the other hand (just playing devil's advocate), non-profit's HAVE to have no profits, and will do things such as what you list in order to maintain their non-profit status.  The web-site and toll-free number you spoke of may be them keeping someone on their payroll, and this is the way they have to pay them for some cockamamy rules regarding divestiture of funds.  The brochure printing may have been a one-time run which may have cost them big $$ in setup costs, printing, or what-have-you, and they may be spreading the amount out over a few years....my point being, there MAY be less to the story than you're reading into it due to our effed up tax laws and loopholes.

In the end, it's a good thing you're trying to do.  Let us know what becomes of this, and if other things pop up.

[DYNAGOD]

indeed, if im wrong, which i hope i am , theres no harm done... but if im right!
some of the expenses on the outside look suspect.

53,000.00$ in IT services
100,000.00$ for website maintenance..

i dont know if you visited the site, but it could have been made by a 12 year old.. its just a simple html page, no flash or scripting or anything..and its the same page they have had for proboly a decade now..

then to further make that suspect, when i emailed her asking for some intel about the audit page she replied with a AOL account...
now if i had paid 153,000.00$ on internet services, why would i reply with a 9.95 a month @AOL account?

now you say no profit??
she pays herself according to the 990 form, 64,500.00$ a year for her supposed 40hr a week services..

[JackTucky]

Do you really think they took in all that money?  Maybe that's part of the scam too.  Look what we've spent!  We need more!

BTW, didn't the chairman of the United Way take a fortune from them 5-10 years ago?  Charities are all like this.  Some "legit" charities give less than 25% of each dollar to the people who actually need it.

Art

[DYNAGOD]

with a take home pay of 64,000.00$ , starting a non-profit is starting to look pretty profitable, maybe i need a career change..

[DYNAGOD]

i used the way back machine internet archive to see how far back that domain goes.
dec 6th of 98...and its the same damn ugly html site.
so what exactly does this 150,000.00$ a year consititute for the same ugly site that hasnt been hardly updated or modified in nearly a decade?
http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.stuttersfa.org

[ChadTower]

Strippers cost a lot of money.

[DYNAGOD]

im curious what saint pays in webshosting for this site just as a comparison.. i bet this place sees more day to day traffic than hers..

[DYNAGOD]

well i sat down and took another peek at the tax form over lunch..
in 2003 their bottom line was 7 million plus, including everything..

but the ONLY payouts to medical professionals in the actual field of stuttering was 10,000.00 dollars.. all in 50.00$,75.00$, and 165.00$ payments to individual speach pathologists.
So not one single doctorate or research scientist ever recieved a single dime, and no one single speech pathologist ever recieved more than 165.00$.
sooooo, 7,000,000.00$ - 10,000.00$ =

FRAUD!!

[Ken Layton]

When numbers like that show up, those tv investigative reporters will have a field day. They love this kind of stuff and it makes for an excellent report!