Poverty Porn

February 23, 2015; ABC-11 News (Raleigh, NC)

NPQ readers, hold on to your hats; this story is a doozy. We’ve extensively covered the unsavory and sometimes illegal practices of many nonprofits in our time, but we may never have told a story quite like the one of Dr. Melanie Stewart, give or take a doctorate degree.

Stewart, who also runs a private school, founded local North Carolina nonprofit OCx2ON—short for “One Church! One Can! One Night!”—about a year ago. OCx2ON is a faith-based nonprofit purposed with helping those in need of short-term emergency care, food or shelter. In its short year of life, OCx2ON has generated quite a following in little Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina. However, donors and concerned locals have been coming out of the woodwork to shine a spotlight on the nonprofit’s questionable, illegal tactics in soliciting donations. In fact, the nonprofit had apparently been posting random photographs on its Facebook page and misleading viewers to believe the people in the pictures were in need of donations.

One caption, under a picture of “a local abused mother,” read, “They have food for now, but lights will be cut off Monday. Her bill is $400. Please inbox me for any amount at all.” However, the picture was not of a local abused mother. Rather, apparently, the picture was a mug shot from a story from the website of British newspaper the Daily Mail of a woman who had repeatedly been charged for beating her boyfriend. (We say “apparently” because the photo post and all similar posts seem to have been deleted from the organization’s Facebook page.)

Another photo showed a van that supposedly housed a homeless family of seven. However, upon further digging by donors and reporter Diane Wilson, the van was from an article by the New York Post on funk legend Sly Stone, who was living in his van at the time.

In response to the misleading photos, Stewart said, “I try and find a van that looks similar to theirs and just give people a visual of what it would be like in a van hooked up to something, so I just Google it and I use this picture,” Stewart said.

Upon being told that that type of solicitation was illegal, Stewart responded, “If you want to crucify me because I used some pictures that maybe I shouldn’t have had or did not have permission to, then crucify me.”

The NPQ reader community is familiar with similar tactics, sometimes referred to as “poverty porn,” in which organizations entice donors usually with misleading story or provocative image that elicits a strong, monetary response. Take the case of the St. Joseph’s Indian School, which for several years would mail donor appeals with pictures of children and their stories. We still don’t know whether just the children were imaginary, their stories, or both. The issue with these tactics is whether they are truly unethical if their use successfully helps others.

But there’s much more to Stewart’s story that makes us uneasy about these donations. While Stewart has been soliciting donations as tax-deductible, OCx2ON is a non-tax-exempt organization. Again, when told it was illegal in North Carolina to market donations as tax-deductible when they are not, Stewart said she was not aware and would stop. Indeed, her website now says they will not be able to provide tax receipts for any donations that are made to the organization.

With fake pictures and illegal solicitations, where exactly are these donations going? According to some intended recipients, not to them. After Stewart helped pay Franki Pearl’s overdue electric bill, another donor wanted to chip in and help Franki’s young daughter continue her craft of painting. Cathy Russell donated $50 to help Bella Pearl, but according to Bella, she never received the donation.

“Every time I asked her about the art supplies, I would get no answers,” said Franki.

When asked if the donations were always getting to the right people, Stewart answered, “For the most part, I believe so. We try and make every effort. And sometimes if donations come in and we can’t locate that person…we will give it to someone else that’s in need.”

According to the report, the organization has also been issued an advisory letter by the North Carolina secretary of state’s Charitable Solicitation and Licensing Division after OCx2ON claimed on its blog that the Division endorsed the charity. An investigation by the Division found the Facebook page claiming to have received over $25,000 in donations in the year. The state is now asking OCx2ON to provide an accounting for all contributions from June 3, 2014 to February 28, 2015.

There are also questions about whether Stewart ever actually received a doctorate degree, though this is probably the least of Stewart’s worries. Commenters to the story provided their own experiences with Stewart, some saying they similarly never received promised donations. While no criminal charges have been brought against Stewart yet, there certainly has been a public indictment on her and OCx2ON’s credibility.

Undoubtedly, there are people the organization has helped in the past year. Do the unsavory solicitation tactics outweigh the good the group has done?—Shafaq Hasan