April 27, 2011; Source: CBSNews | CBS News reported yesterday that Feed the Children can no longer be counted among the nation’s billion dollar charities . . . but then again, perhaps it never was.
In contrast to the $1.2 billion in donations it declared for 2009, Feed the Children in 2010 reported a mere $538 million in “cash gifts, in-kind donations, rental income, investment income, and transportation revenue.” But it is unclear how much of this decline has to do with a loss of income versus the way donations, particularly donations of “deworming tablets,” have been valued.
But some of the loss is not just an accounting shift – there has also been a decline in cash donations from $127 million in 2009 to $94 million in 2010.
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NPQ has previously reported on Feed the Children’s travails as it sought to relieve itself of its well-known founder and a web of problems that had developed in the organization that included a family saga worthy of a Dominick Dunne article.
Cass Wheeler, the current interim president said the charity now has developed a set of new policies dealing not only with its accounting practices but more generally with ethics, including nepotism and fraternization. He also said FTC is recruiting new board members and a new president.—Ruth McCambridge
