Inflating the value of gifts in kind is distressingly common in the international relief community. One member of that community here discusses the damage that the practice does and who it benefits.
Food for the Poor exists in a subsector of nonprofits that have historically had problems with creative accounting, so it should have known better than to engage in some of the practices that are currently being exposed by regulators and media outlets.
California’s attorney general is doing some heavy lifting on holding charities based in other states to account.
A union and a conservative nonprofit are both being sued by the Washington state attorney general for campaign finance violations in a battle over “Right to Work” campaigns. The AG even used identical language to describe his reasons for suing the various parties, albeit in different press conferences.
From confusions around duty of loyalty to the advisability (or not) of regifting gifts in kind, there is no complicated situation that the Nonprofit Ethicist cannot untangle.
