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Egregious Foundations

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If 99% of foundations act in a truly charitable fashion, that would imply that about 500 foundations in our universe have made choices that might seem odd, or self serving.

In this section we point out a few examples that seem incongruous with core philanthropic principles.   

CHRISTIAN OLSEN PRIVATE FOUNDATION

Location Assets Giving Date Link to Filing
North Palm Beach, FL
$9 million
$638 thousand
Sep 2021
Link

What are the issues?

  • The sole trustee, Joseph Fleming, was paid $96,000 in trustee compensation
  • The foundation paid $104,000 to Fleming and Fleming, Joseph Fleming’s law firm, for legal services. 
  • Combined the foundation paid $200,000 to Joseph Fleming and his firm, while disbursing $304,000 to charity.  
  • The foundation wrote about 60 checks to operating charities.  If you average the donations divided by number of checks, it is about $5,000 per charity.  If you average Joseph Fleming and his law firms compensation per check, it comes to about $3,300 per check written.   

WILLIAM T MORRIS FOUNDATION

Location Assets Giving Date Link to Filing
Naples, FL
$41 million
$1.5 million
Jun 2020
Link

What are the issues?

  • The foundation paid its president, B.A. August, $498,000 in compensation (up form $489,000 the previous year) as well as $56,000 in benefits for the year. In the past 4 years, total compensation amounts to about $2 million. 
  • The foundation made $1.97 million in charitable donation to about 60 operating charities, essentially the same charities as in previous years.   
  • So the president’s compensation package was over 25% of the charitable disbursements. 

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