Last June in this space I wrote about American Coalition for Autistic Children after it called the New To Las Vegas world headquarters asking for a donation in support of autism efforts. A little digging by me showed it was just a name used by American Alliance for Disabled Children PAC. Yes, a PAC–a political action committee, which is not a charity at all, of course, but a conduit to make contributions to political campaigns and perhaps push a cause.
At the time AADC, which listed Orland Park, Ill., a Chicago suburb, as its mailing address, had been around for less than a year. Its financial efficiencies were dreadful, with almost all the donations going to fundraising expense rather than any worthy purpose. Folks contributing to AADC were helping the battle against autism in no meaningful way.
I called AADC a “faux charity,” as it was a PAC presenting itself to would-be donors as a reputable good-works organization. Some, as you will see below, have used stronger language in describing such operations.
Judging from recent comments appended to the bottom of that post by Internet users, AADC is still soliciting like crazy mainly using its autism DBA, even hitting up would-be donors with dementia. And the financial efficiencies are still terrible.
How terrible? I now have reviewed AADC’s filings with the Federal Election Commission for all of 2020. AADC reported raising $1.15 million in contributions. Here’s how much AADC said it gave to political candidates:
Zero. Zip. Nada.
That’s right. Not one dime. This by simple math is an all-time low for any political action committee on record. Especially for a year like 2020, which included a hot presidential election, and races for most of Congress, too. And one thing that AADC wasn’t doing was accumulating a war chest for future elections. On December 21, 2020, it had in the bank all of $3,658.91. Continue reading
