Headlines and Commitments

The headline on the first page of the business section of the New York Times read: “Patchwork Oversight Allows Dubious Charities to Operate.” What unfolded was the tale of James T. Reynolds Sr., accused of cheating donors to his charities – the Cancer Fund of America among them - out of more than $187M, over many decades. The backdrop of the article was the role of the IRS in not only awarding charities their tax-exempt status but also being tasked with overseeing their compliance. A quote from the vice president of Charity Navigator, a go-to resource for many who are evaluating or researching charities, noted that the US has more than 1 million charities and that the IRS “will say they don’t have enough resources to monitor them.”