New To Las Vegas

For once, the cold caller to the New To Las Vegas world headquarters was a real person, as opposed to a computer using voice recognition technology. That made it a little easier to have a meaningful back and forth as she asked for a charitable contribution.

The cause, she said, was something called Veterans Trauma Support Network. I asked for its address, and she said it was based in Orlando, Fla. She described the organization as nationwide in scope, contributions to which would be tax-deductible. I listened patiently to her pitch that the money would help vets cope with PTSD and other ailments.

She said she worked for an outside paid fundraiser named Charitable Resource Foundation. Finally, I asked how much of donations would go to the stated cause as opposed to fundraising expense. Twelve percent, she said somewhat matter of factly.

Oh, I said. So 88% of all the money raised goes to the fundraiser like you?

The caller said coolly she wasn’t going to discuss the terms of her own compensation. As you might imagine, the call ended soon thereafter.

Quick research by me showed that Veterans Trauma Support Network isn’t its own charity at all but a fundraising trade name used by another charity called Crisis Relief Network. According to official websites, CRN’s fundraisers solicit for money under all kinds of evocative, wallet-tugging names. Besides Veterans Trauma Relief Network, they have included Child Watch of North America, Childhood Abuse and Trauma Foundation, Children’s Cancer Relief Foundation and Breast Cancer Relief Network. (The Child Watch department got some bad press in the San Francisco area last year for using pictures of missing children in its fundraising efforts without parental permission.)

That’s an awful lot of causes for a parent organization that according to the first page of its latest tax return had just one paid employee. Nor was that the only surprise. Continue reading →