The Injured Police Officers Fund, which raises and provides money to families of Las Vegas-area cops injured or even killed in the line of the duty, is the real deal. This honest organization really sails above the rest in a sea of local law enforcement fundraising money shenanigans.
This ocean includes former Las Vegas councilwoman Michele Fiore. She’s scheduled to be sentenced next month following a federal-court fraud conviction for diverting to personal use money she raised for a fallen-officer monument. One of her marks–first revealed here–included an unknowing Joe Lombardo, then the Clark County Sheriff and now the governor.
This ocean includes Thomas Kovach. He has pleaded not guilty to charges he secretly siphoned off money raised by the Metropolitan Police Department Foundation, which he ran, to another nonprofit paying him a nice salary.
This ocean includes a school of national faux charity political action committees that sport law enforcement names but spend almost no money raised on their stated missions. They also regularly solicit Las Vegas residents on the telephone in blatant violation of a 2021 state law requiring pre-registration and filings, with the main regulator, the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office, essentially doing very little regulating but completely escaping accountability (except from me).
The 43-year-old IPOF does absolutely none of this bad stuff. And to its credit it just filed an amended public federal tax return after the New to Las Vegas world headquarters–that’s me, folks–pointed out that some required data was left out of its original filing. The new information explains a little more clearly what money passes through IPOF and how it is spent. In my view, the original omission amounted to nothing more than a little sloppiness.
As a national journalist who has written about fundraising organizations for decades, I take an annual look at the financials of IPOF for several reasons. First, I live in Las Vegas. Second, no one else takes a look, certainly no one in what’s left of the hollowed-out traditional news media in Las Vegas nor the online outfits–many of them partisan or ideological–that have arisen in their stead. Third, there’s a legitimate public interest. IPOF gets into the news on a regular basis, most often after a police officer is injured or killed and the public is advised, especially on local TV newscasts, that IPOF is the official designated agency for contributions. Lastly, the numbers and what they mean are sort of interesting.
So here’s the latest info, for calendar year 2023. Unfortunately, charity tax filings are terribly slow in becoming public record. For 2024, IPOF’s return, called an IRS Form 990, likely won’t be available for nearly another year. As required by federal law, the nonprofit sent me a copy of the 37-page 2023 returns–the original and the amended–upon my written request, while IPOF and I had a written back-and-forth over the data.
IPOF made grants of $334,749 to the families of 20 officers, two of whom died, according to the IPOF website. Of that sum, $91,783, consisted of amounts paid upon the specific request of donors to specific officers. The extent of designated donations and expenditures was only revealed by IPOF for the first time in 2022, and then only after years of hectoring by me, arguing that disclosure was required by federal law. This information inexplicably was left off the initial 2023 return but included in the amended return after I pointed out to IPOF’s just-retired president, Lt. Chelsea Stuenkel of the Nevada Department of Public Safety, that the omission was improper and also wildly inconsistent with other parts of the return. She agreed.
Counting the designated donations, IPOF received $686,104 in gifts from the public. After all expenses, IPOF added for future use more than $300,000 to its net assets, which at year’s end for the first time ever topped $3 million.
Like any nonprofit, IPOF can be evaluated on the basis of financial efficiency. One such metric is the charitable commitment ratio, or the percent of total expenditures paid in direct furtherance of the stated mission. IPOF listed its mission on the tax return’s first page (as well as in public pronouncements) as to “provide financial assistance to families of officers injured or killed in the line of duty.” Accounting rules allow certain but not all overhead to be included in program support, as the mission is also known. IPOF’s charitable commitment ratio for 2023 was 78%. This is well above the 65% threshold set by the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance, a leading national charity watchdog.
But even better for IPOF is the other big metric of charitable evaluation, the fundraising efficiency ratio. This is the percent of donations remaining after deduction of fundraising expenses. For 2023, IPOF’s ratio was 100%. In other words, the charity spent nothing on fundraising; it can’t get any more efficient than that. IPOF has excelled at this efficiency. I have all IPOF tax returns back to 2001, and the average is 98%. Again, the BBB says any ratio above 65% is okay.
There are two basic reasons for this super-efficiency. First, IPOF is legitimate, unlike the faux charities plaguing Las Vegas (and the rest of the country) that siphon off money in undisclosed conflicts-of-interest. Second, IPOF doesn’t hire outside direct mail or telephone solicitation outfits, a process that is expensive and prone to corruption. Instead, IPOF relies on a few large donors; net proceeds from several annual fundraisers; contributions, designated or otherwise, to IPOF generated by media attention from a police tragedy, and investment returns. Since IPOF is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, contributions can be tax-deductible by the donor who itemize
IPOF also has an unpaid board of cops: mainly sworn officers representing nearly a dozen law enforcement agencies operating in southern Nevada. The new president is Alexander Cuevas, a veteran patrol officer with the North Las Vegas Police Department.
Founded in 1982, IPOF started in response to uninsured expenses incurred by a policeman shot in the head during a traffic stop, and over time has grown. IPOF now pays a death benefit of $25,000 for line-of-duty deaths and, in non-fatal cases, up to $10,000 of out-of-pocket costs like child care during a recovery period. The charity’s role in funneling designated contributions without taking a haircut for overhead that might be its most heart-warming function. In 2022, and perhaps many earlier years, designated contributions topped general ones.
I can’t say enough bad things about the faux charities, contributions to which are not–repeat, not–tax-deductible, nor the MIA regulators in Nevada and elsewhere. To read my previous coverage on this subject, simply type the word “faux” into the nearby search box and jump back at the many hits. Faux charity charitable commitment and financial efficiency ratios, which I calculated from their public filings with the Federal Election Commission or Internal Revenue Service, were zero or pretty close to it in all cases, hosing unknowing donors contributing in good faith.
Here’s a list of faux charities with law enforcement themes that have illegally solicited me (and, undoubtedly thousands of other Nevadans): American Coalition for Police and Sheriff’s PAC, American Police Officers Alliance, American Police Officers Coalition PAC, Law Enforcement for a Safer America PAC, National Police Officers Alliance PAC, National Police Support Fund, Police Officers Support Association PAC, Police Officers Support Committee PAC, and POSC PAC.
IPOF is in a boat of its own. Others make me seasick.