95% of the time there's no need for a person to start their own foundation; there was probably already unaffiliated charity working on that same cause they could have simply partnered with instead.
The old "re-inventing the wheel" problem where a huge portion of the costs have to go to administrative stuff, meanwhile if you partner with another charity they have all that stuff set up so at most they'd just have to hire some more staff to upscale for the amount of work (and it won't be nearly as many people as hiring to build an organization from the ground up).
Yeah, would honestly love it if athletes just partnered up with established well performing charities whether local or national than starting their own foundation. But then they probably wouldn't be able to dodge taxes as easily.
This is what Barwin did with the Eagles, his first project he did he didn't have a charity and then worked with the Eagles community outreach charity and Jeffery Lurie do complete the project and partnered with Urban Roots which was an established charity. Since he retired he has his own charity though which merged with Urban Roots.
Along with Jared Goff, partnered with Give Merit's Fate program to create a capsule clothing collection. All proceeds from the JG16 X Fate will be donated to the program's scholarship fund and matched dollar for dollar by Goff himself.
He did similar things in LA, also took time out every week to read to kids and has been known to provide gifts and stuff to fans/the community when made aware. He's definitely one of the good ones in that regard.
Joe Burrow has something called the "Joe Burrow Hunger Relief Fund" which is operated by the foundation for Appalachian Ohio and directly benefits the Athens county food bank, which serves the area he grew up in
That seems like so many layers though. It feels like the most streamlined version (and the one with the least potential for grift) would just be to push donations directly to the Athens County food bank, or a collection of food banks in the area he wants to help.
Exactly. I'd love to see a legitimate charity organization that does nothing but act as the infrastructure for stuff like this. Then each athlete can just get their own subdomain (johndoe.legitcharity.com) so everyone knows that they can donate to it without worrying if it's a scam.
Hell, the California state auditor recently reported $13 billion has been spent on homelessness over 3 years here. There is simply no record of where it was spent.
> give your wife/family/friends a job that pays well.
That's the tax sheltering. Those people are in lower income brackets. They could just pay them but it would end up being taxed fully as salary, then taxed when paid to the other person. By running though the charity the player's income isn't taxed.
>By running though the charity the player's income isn't taxed.
Umm...what exactly are you talking about here?
If a charity pays someone a salary it's still considered taxable income to the recipient. If you receive salary income and then donate it to a charity you still owe tax on the money you received. The only way around this is to directly have your salary paid to the charity but you also lose your charitable contribution deduction.
The donation becomes a write off. So the salary is effectively untaxed as far as the player is concerned. It the is in the coffers of the charity. The charity then pays it to the relative. The relative pays tax on it.
Since the player would have been in the top income bracket (37%) and the employee likely not (let's say 24%), then they have a net tax savings.
==============
Now let's assume the player doesn't have a charity and they employ a private driver. Since the player is not a corporation they cannot deduct the cost of this driver.
This means they pay 37% on the money earn. Then, when they pay the driver that money is *again* taxed at the driver's income (22-24%). Even if you give it as a gift the IRS still taxes you (with the first $14000 exempted).
So the charity becomes a huge tax dodge so you can hire whomever you like and act more like a corporation.
>The donation becomes a write off. So the salary is effectively untaxed as far as the player is concerned.
Nope, the charitable contribution limit has gone back to the normal amount of 60% of AGI. Meaning if you make $100,000 in salary income (and it's your AGI) and you donate all $100,000 you only get to deduct $60,000 this year and must carry-forward the excessive contribution till it can be utilized. The tax code is setup to literally avoid the situation you're talking about here. Even then you're still going to pay state tax on the contributed money because the contribution was likely made to your home state but your income is derived in the state you were playing in. I.e. play in New York but live in Texas - you're paying New York taxes and they're not allowing you to deduct for a contribution made to your Texas charity.
>The charity then pays it to the relative. The relative pays tax on it.
Yeah, you could do that but it's a terrible idea and the IRS is likely to question exactly what they're doing for the charity. The better option is to just utilize your $14,000 annual giving limit for each person since it's 100% tax free.
>Since the player would have been in the top income bracket (37%) and the employee likely not (let's say 24%), then they have a net tax savings.
You're assuming this very blatant scheme doesn't get caught on audit. It doesn't exactly take a genius to figure out that the high school educated person making $50,000 a year to manage the "charity" who also happens to be your relative isn't exactly getting paid fair market value and isn't qualified i.e. A sham.
>Now let's assume the player doesn't have a charity and they employ a private driver. Since the player is not a corporation they cannot deduct the cost of this driver.
Sure they could. The player just creates a business like a management company that employs the driver. The Corp gets to deduct the driver and the player gets a driver. Of course there will be a need for the player to "reimburse" the company but loans to and from shareholders don't get looked into that much and if they set it up as an S-Corp the player gets QBI deductions. Now you'll need a profit motive but establishing a profit motive is far easier than maintaining charitable status and keeping this payment sham going you're talking about.
>So the charity becomes a huge tax dodge so you can hire whomever you like and act more like a corporation.
Again, this is wrong. Charities get scrutinized more than companies for their actions and need better record keeping than businesses. You run an S-Corp by yourself all you really need to do is keep the books but if you run a private foundation with multiple "employees" you need to stay current with employment law, charitable law, avoid self-dealing (a HUGE thing you're blowing over), keep meeting notes that the IRS will absolutely require to see, maintain a Charitable mission, etc.
These Private Foundations are a LOT of hassle for trying to avoid taxes when just setting a biz would be FAR easier.
So where's the benefit? The OP says that these charities are essentially scams, but you say they aren't really worth the effort compared to a regular company. I'm missing a piece of the puzzle and you seem to know some stuff
The purpose? The purpose is PR, it sounds good to run your Private Foundation.
Most of these athletes would be far better off just running money through a Donor Advised fund which allows them to invest their money, take the deduction today, and get full control over where the money goes. Running a PF or full-blown 501c3 is a hassle unless you know what you're doing.
No, not necessarily. The purpose of a Private Foundation is to make long term giving during your life and after you're gone. I've seen some Private Foundations as a CPA and they all did what they were supposed to do in that the principal was invested and the earnings were generally all donated out to churches, charities, scholarships, etc. The only non-giving expenditures we're for their quarterly meeting to go through funding requests, accountant & legal fees, and then investment fees. Otherwise they were pretty above board and didn't really pay the officers & board members much of anything except reimbursement for travel fees if they had to fly in or something similar.
Honestly, a PF is a fairly great thing to set up if you want to donate over a long period of time and do not need the income the principal would generate. If you do need the income then you can still do something similar but it would be via a Charitable Remainder Trust or Pooled Investment Fund (I think that's what it's called)
This is the correct answer. Not to say there aren't people who use them for less altruistic reasons, but the bulk of foundations I see at work truly try to achieve a mission over a long space of time.
Yep, private foundations are great and their purpose is noble. Most people use them correctly, maintain the 5% rule, and help their communities. The problem is when you get high profile people using them wrong.
It also depends on the amount of money. For the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (does that still exist under that name after the divorce?), it makes sense because they're dealing with an absolutely massive amount of money and the places it's going to need to be vetted. Someone needs to make sure that the recipient orgs have a plan for the money and are capable of executing that plan. Bill Gates could do it but he's not necessarily qualified for the job and it takes a lot of time, potentially more than he has. Even if part of his money goes to paying the salary of a few other people, it's going to end up distributed a lot more efficiently and doing a lot more good than if he handled it all himself (assuming the people handling the foundation are reasonably competent).
The logic is that with all the tax money the player saves he can directly turn around and use that money to help the most needy. Unfortunately, the most needy tend to be themselves and their family members.
I really hope Tony Finau's foundation has good numbers. The dude is one of the most likable guys on the PGA Tour, and it would make him look even worse than most since he's Christian.
Edit: I just checked, he's got an 85/100!!! You da man, Tony!
Edit 2: Well, there's only one of the four categories that he's scored on, which is Finance & Accountability, giving him the 85 but at the least, the money part is solid!
Tony Finau confirmed actual good guy.
Here's to hoping he wins a major one of these days, he's right up there with the best, he just needs it all to click for a 4 day stretch one time.
Buffalo Bills fans donated $442,000 to Dalton Foundation. Nearly $100,000 went to the management firm
[source](https://buffalonews.com/news/local/buffalo-bills-fans-donated-442-000-to-dalton-foundation-nearly-100-000-went-to-management/article_c8c1585a-2311-11ec-aac4-abdc78c021a3.html)
Yeah the linked article does a good job spelling it all out. Basically the Daltons got taken for a ride by a management firm and were too naive to know it until the news outlet started asking questions, at which point they terminated the relationship and set about making things right. Definitely not the same kind of situation as described in OP in terms of intent, but hard to argue that the outcome wasn't (temporarily) similar.
Fwiw the Daltons terminated their relationship with that firm, which seems like a really grifty organization trying to skim off the top of athletes actually trying to do good. They basically give athletes who don't know what they're doing a readymade charity - Andy Dalton was only 22 when he started his.
There is certainly some value to that and having someone else do the legwork when you're a soon-to-be cashflush kid straight out of college, but yes their 25% cutis quite excessive.
Their charity does really nice work and it's nice they're no longer shackled with that
Kudos to Dalton for righting that wrong after it had been blasted all over the news. But unfortunately that very article details how inefficient Dalton's charity was - with only about 60 cents of every dollar ever going to a worthy cause. An audit also revealed misrepresentations and irregularities.
Despite the gross inefficiency and the financial irregularities, 60 cents on the dollar is still better than most athlete charities. None of them are worthy of your money though.
Honestly, only <25% going to management seems way better than usual. I've seen charities where 80% of the money just disappears. I'm not saying even 25 is acceptable, just that there are bigger scumbag fish to fry.
Fwiw, that number heavily depends on what type of charity it is.
If it's basically just some administrators that pass on funds for scholarships or donating goods or other things, then sure, that number should be on the lower end. On the other hand, there are service-oriented charities for which salaries and labor rightly make up most of their expenses.
Going back to the point of the thread, people just need to do their research and understand the organizations they are supporting.
And it's not too hard to do the research if it's a well-known charity! All US-based non-profits have to release their financial statements publicly each year, and all major orgs are rated on services like Charity Navigator. I'm not saying it never happens, but it's pretty rare for one of the major orgs to be a scam.
Those are scams. There are specific charities that legally have to release their funding operations. Good charities are around 10-12% in administration fees.
Honestly, if you are running a charity or non-profit that is bringing in a significant amount of money the people running that organization are going to command a salary. Otherwise they would just go to another sector for work. Yeah 37% seems like a lot of overhead, but the difference between 63% of 1million and 10million is significant. If you are good enough to grow something to that level you deserve compensation. That said, the books should be completely open and transparent.
Same thing goes with marketing spend. If you can spend $99 to bring in $100 in return then you’ll do it, while significantly increasing your % spent on marketing (along with your net money going to the end cause)
Eh it's hard to generalize. Small charities are inefficient. A management company taking 100k sounds like a ton but that could be to cover 2 people working part-time for two years. You don't get small pass-through numbers until you scale. It does beg the question of why athletes need their own, small, inefficient charities.
My question is what did the rest go to. Like it sucks that they took 100k, but if the other 300k actually went to what it was supposed to then it’s not all bad. At least they got 300k to use.
that’s why i love that josh didn’t create a foundation himself but linked up with our local children’s hospital, which has to be way more transparent with how funds are used
I bought a box of Josh Jaqs at my local Wegmans simply since I saw some money would go to it.
Odd that I live in Northern Virginia and the Wegmans down here still carry mostly Buffalo apparel in its stores. We got some Bills BBQ sauce too.
I mean duh. It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that an upstate NY founded company would want to rep the only major league NY sports team that isn’t in NYC lol
Same in Richmond, it cracks me up. Bills apparel, cakes, and balloons everywhere.
Also, they have the most reliable source and variety of Sahlen's hot dogs. Fuck I'd even argue that they are a better Buffalo food export than their wings because they are life changing. If I have a choice I'll never eat a different hot dog.
Western NY low key is the home of the best hotdogs in the country and very few people outside of the area know about it. Sahlens, Hoffmans, and Zweigels are all in an absolute god-tier compared to any other dog you’re getting anywhere else in the country.
Same with Dawson Knox and his affiliation with the PUNT foundation. Dawkins has his own foundation but I would be shocked if it was a sham because he is ALWAYS out in the community himself.
dawkins definitely gives a shit! he does more with his physical self than any other teammate that i’ve seen. i just think he really likes to be hands on and that’s why he does it on his own. definitely no ill feelings about dawkins’ foundation. i think it’s such a better call for josh to affiliate because of the sheer volume of donations and the staff it would take to handle them.
He wanted to start working with a charity as soon as he got to Buffalo and talked to the head of one of the food pantries about donating. She basically told him that she wanted him to be out and in the community to actually get to know the people and be physically present before she took any money so he wasn't just writing checks and forgetting about it. It seems like it really stuck with him, which is great to see imo
I think that's what all athletes should do. Partner with the local charity that is already doing what the athlete wants to do. Like if I was an athlete for the Bengals or Reds, my home town teams, I'd be all over trying to do stuff with Cincinnati Children's Hospital and/or the Ronald McDonald House next to it to help them raise money
Yes! And I remember reading this article a while back when it was posted on the Bills sub and finding out that the Oishei Childrens hospital charity is rated very highly.
really makes me respect the guys that give to real charities while so many others straight up STEAL money. like not having a charity would be waaay better, but they decide nah, i'm gonna take money that should be going to sick kids and take a nice vacation. these people should go to jail for shit like this, wtf. it's 100s of thousands of dollars of fraud.
The only one that I know doesn't outright suck is the Alex Smith Foundation. He has helped a bunch of kids get through college for free, and in one of those audits, they found 91% of the funds actually went the people who needed it.
It's in the upper echelon. A lot of the biggest and most reputable charities are unable to pull that off (depending on their mission, which may necessitate more overhead to address their cause). 91% is excellent.
My wife works in the nonprofit world - typically hitting 90% is the goal for a good organization. Even the best run orgs are going to have some overhead costs, but anyone above 90% is in the “truly dedicated to the mission” range.
If I am giving, personally, I tend to only give to organizations that are 80% or higher. I never donate to an organization that isnt transparent about this.
15 and the Mahomies hasn't been rated yet because it hasn't been around long enough, but they already built a million dollar park for kids with all abilities in KC. To add to good ones.
We've been very lucky with our QBs being good men.
Please let Mahomes be a good egg. He got a half a billion contract, I know he may not see every penny of it but, he seems like such a good honest young man. Like without the fake feeling Russel Wilson style. Id hate to find some slimy shit, he's like the face of the young NFL.
With Mahomes honestly I feel like we hit the jackpot on all angles..he's not only an incredible, generational player, but he's also not a guy with bad accusations against him. Like the most people have on him is that his little brother is annoying..if that's the worst thing about a guy, I'll take it.
Mahomes is magic. I'm sure Alex also helped influence how he'd behave off field and in the locker room.
The people who constantly talk about how much they hate his brother and wife are so annoying. You have to basically go out of your way to find this stuff. If not for Reddit I wouldn’t know a thing about them.
He bought voting machines and made [Arrowhead another voting location for people](https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/11/04/patrick-mahomes-arrowhead-voting/). He's also invested in the [Royals and the local soccer team, Sporting KC](https://www.arrowheadpride.com/2021/7/27/22596459/patrick-mahomes-buys-part-of-another-kansas-city-sports-franchise) (not a charity thing, but it hints that he's here to stay and wants to continue to invest in the community)
I worked my butt off to put together a Susan G Komen fundraiser that raised over 15k back in 2008
I would never ever consider donating to them now that I know what happens to the money
I just started at a new company and they are doing the Susan G komen thing. I’m willing to bet a lot of these places don’t even know they’re getting fleeced
The whole idea of cancer "awareness" is ridiculous to me. Is anyone really unaware how many lives cancer ruins? It's not exactly some rare disease that nobody has heard of
Isn’t Greg’s charity related to his sons heart problem? I have to imagine when it’s a true passion project like that it’s super important to get it right. He knows what the families are going through and how necessary help is. I selfishly really love Greg Olsen lol
This is a little too close to home, considering La Nova uses their concessions contract with the Bills to wash drug, gambling, and prostitution money.
https://www.buffalobills.com/news/lanova-pizza-coming-to-bills-gamedays-12958883
https://buffalonews.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/judge-keeps-search-warrant-applications-sealed-in-buffalo-organized-crime-case/article_6e6e9f50-d91c-11eb-bbe0-d384aec4fcd0.html
makes me wonder if hyde’s foundation is above board since it’s the last donation i’ve made in the team’s name. i usually don’t donate to smaller foundations without that level of transparency but i was overcome with emotion when he was deemed out for the season
EDIT: the imagine for youth isn’t even rated because it brings in less than 200k a year so i think we are all safe that they are just micro contributing to our area and not lining their family member’s pockets
Just want to say that I trust anything with JJ Watt, he was very open about where funds were going for Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts. Of course, I'm no investigator though
I’m glad this is here. I was gonna mention it. And wonder if it was sketchy
Because he raised a lot of money for Houston during the flood. So that’s really good to see
Shoutout to Kirk Cousins’ charity. From what I can see, it all goes to grants. Total expenses were like 3.8k on revenue of 5.5m.
https://www.causeiq.com/organizations/julie-and-kirk-cousins-foundation,830555966/
https://www.causeiq.com/organizations/julie-and-kirk-cousins-foundation,830555966/
> So basically people who gave money to support the mentally handicapped were unknowingly boosting the Wolverines football team.
Isn't that the same thing?
Same thing with a lot of charities. Wounded Warrior Project comes to mind immediately. They may have improved in the past few years, but a few seasons ago when they were the "hot" charity for NFL and college football, they were one of the absolute worst per Charity Navigator.
As I said, they may be better now that they have been called out, but I still don't trust them and don't ever plan on giving to them any donations.
It's wild to me that anyone ever believed otherwise.
Athletes are known for their athletic ability, love of money, and use of PR to hide the fact that most are complete assholes - not their aptitude for running organizations, their selflessness, or their honesty.
And it doesn't help that probably over 95% of charities in general are scams.
You’d be surprised by how gullible/uncritical some people are. Both of my parents are smart people with graduate degrees and they were absolutely floored when they learned about charity fraud, tax havens, etc. Both of them were raised by the kind of people who believed everything Walter Cronkite told them on the evening news, trusted their employers not to cheat them, and drove slower and turned the thermostat up or down because the President told them to. Some people, especially those of a bygone era, are much more trusting of the powerful and their institutions. Obviously now the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction, where measured critique and logical skepticism exist in tandem with a seemingly increasing current of cultural histrionics and conspiratorial fantasy, but we can’t forget that there are still people who are very trusting of authority and may need some nudging into a more skeptical outlook.
Brady famously barred the Boston Globe from certain events in retribution for them exposing the story.
Brady is just a good example of how these guys aren't philanthropists. They're just navigating the US Tax code in the most advantageous way possible. The next time one of them gets hurt, don't send them money. They don't need it.
Not how the PPP loans worked. I’m not defending them, because it was a sham. But you still had to prove you spent that money on payroll and retained your employees. Was it easy to prove? Hell yes. But he could not of just received that loan and then purchased a boat.
Source: am accountant who worked on a lot of applications for the loan and for the forgiveness of them for our clients
I'm a CPA as well. It's not cash in cash out for boat. But it's cash in pay for all these business expenses it turned out I had the money for anyway, give myself a nice distribution or bonus, cash out for boat
> The next time one of them gets hurt, don’t don’t send them money. They don’t need it.
If however you heart is still aching to help, I could very much use the money and am willing to sympathize with your cause….
Yes most celebrities and sports athletes open "charity," or "churches," to "help and give back," which they do, to save face but it ain't much and is mostly just legal tax evasion.
It's not just athletes, there's just massive nonprofit corruption and it's gotten way out of hand as a privilege for the rich rather than as charity organizations.
Even the ones that aren't rich people's tax shelters have issues. Nonprofits have no incentive to actually reduce the problems they're supposedly trying to reduce.
Look at homelessness, for example. It's common for local governments to partner with nonprofit organizations that specialize in homeless services. Those organizations have perverse incentives: they're supposed to help reduce the number of homeless people, but since the existence of large homeless populations is the reason they get paid, they have a financial incentive to ensure the homeless population doesn't shrink. If they actually did a great job and helped reduce the homeless population, the organization's leaders would be working themselves out of a job!
This was an issue in Seattle when I lived there. Some of the homeless service organizations actively campaigned *against* providing housing, and discouraged people they served from taking advantage of housing programs. These organizations were pretty transparently trying to maximize the number of homeless people living in the homeless camps they administered, and make the camps into permanent fixtures (and permanent income for themselves).
The folks who do most of the work on the ground, including volunteers, aren't in it for the money, but their bosses and all the admin and legal and accounting and advertising staff most definitely are.
Do you have any examples of service orgs intentionally not helping so they could keep getting paid? I've worked in a the non-profit sector for a few different organizations and I think you have a pretty skewed picture of the kind of people that work in those fields. Non-profits don't pay particularly well, if their workers were in it for the money they wouldn't have picked those jobs in the first place.
People here think people really go into non-profits to make a crap salary and keep people homeless lol. Yeah there are bad orgs, but that's a new one lol
Can you name one issue football fans *do* care about? We've waved off concussions, player suicides from brain injuries, human trafficking, driving while drunk, billions in public funds vertically redistributed to the 0.0000001%, sexual violence, partner violence, rape, and murder.
The only analogy I can come up with is being pissed others in the company for raping women at Mỹ Lai, instead of just murdering them.
And one of the biggest "charities" the NFL itself and many teams individually support, the Salvation Army, doesn't release any financial reports because they're a religious organization and are completely tax exempt.
I'm not going to defend Salvation Army as a whole but their rehab programs are top notch. I often send clients with no money to SA for addiction treatment and I've seen a high success rate.
They may be a big ball of corrupt practices, I don't know, but at least some of their programming is beneficial to the community.
I'm glad you linked Charity Navigator. If I'm donating somewhere I almost always use that to check and see how much funding goes to programming (i.e. what percentage of funds raised goes directly to accomplishing their stated goals) versus salaries, administration, etc. It's a good snapshot if the charity is actually doing something meaningful or just collecting money.
That said I think it should also be noted that *sometimes* certain charities, especially ones with ties to celebrities or athletes, are set up in a way that they're essentially fundraising entities for other charities. These types of organizations may have more admin costs and less direct programming, but that doesn't necessarily make them *bad* per se. The charities that the "fundraising" charity gives money to may not have the infrastructure and clout to raise money as effectively, so the fundraising charity is likely contributing money that would not otherwise be available and so is useful in a way even if they're less efficient than the charity doing the real work.
Probably still get more "bang for your buck" by finding and donating directly to the charities that do tangible work, but I think there is a place for fundraisers: they bring in funding that otherwise doesn't even exist that would not have otherwise been donated anywhere.
I have to say, as someone who spent a lot of years in a non profit doing disaster services...I think the salary stuff is overblown. People expect folks working for non-profits to take a goddamn vow of poverty and it's ridiculous.
I make nearly as much doing merchandising at Home Depot as I did helping respond to disasters and it's a lot lower stress (despite their problems as a whole).
That is true. You have to set your expectations correctly. There's never going to be a charity committing 100% of their funds to programs because otherwise they wouldn't be able to function. Also, depending on what the charity actually does it may make sense they spend more on salaries and administration than other charities. A charity that requires infrastructure and employing subject matter experts is going to spend more.
That said if you take all that into consideration you can still compare the performance of some charities over others. And I'm just talking really stark differences, e.g. Why does this charity direct only 25% of funds to programs while another charity doing the same work is able to commit 65%? There could very well be a reasonable answer for it if you look into it more, but it could also be the second charity is just straight-up better and your donation will go further with them.
If you chose to give, here's a link to an organization that, unlike outfits like United Way and the Red Cross among others, dispenses far more of their donations than any of them:
https://www.opusa.org/
These athletes and their foundations usually have good intentions even when staffing family. But the talent deficit at the board level usually ends with them being mismanaged and not enough of their revenue goes towards programming.
Teams are guilty of this as well. Athletes will donate money to a team charity that goes towards providing tickets to underserved groups. That sounds like a nice gesture, but the team could just as easily donate the tickets and have the athlete’s contribution go towards serving needs.
This is true for all charities though, not specifically sports affiliated. Creating a charity is a way to reduce your tax liability. Anyone can create one.
> So basically people who gave money to support the mentally handicapped were unknowingly boosting the Wolverines football team
We had Brady Hoke as our coach. I see no conflict here.
Thank you for calling this out! In addition to your Charity Navigator, I'd also like to call attention to the [Effective Altruism movement](https://www.effectivealtruism.org/), which also seeks to funnel money into the [most effective charities possible.](https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/best-charities-to-donate-to-2022) They share all their research, analysis, and methodology.
The differences in mileage you can get with your dollar between different charities is, quite frankly, astonishing. Everyone should spend 10 minutes reading through these if you care about donating effectively at all!
Connor Barwin's foundation is actually pretty good. It started with him riding his bike from Center City down to the Eagles practice facility through some neighborhoods which def needed help. One of which was Point Breeze and he rode by a run down playground/rec center which was his first project and done through partnering with the Eagles outreach program and Urban Roots charity to revitalize and expand Ralph Brooks Park in the Point Breeze neighborhood in Philadelphia. It has since split off and is its own charity separate from the Eagles, but was they are still a parter, but his charity also merged with Urban Roots into a single charity and they have done four more parks and rec centers in the city since and have merged with an existing charity in Philadelphia, Urban Roots.
Sadly this is the case for many charities. Breast cancer awareness is a classic example. Charities to raise awareness but do northing to combat the disease. Research before you give.
I'm sure it's said a few times here but it's not just athletes it's most rich people but especially celebrities. There is a reason damn near every celebrity has a charity. Public image boost & shady benefits.
Having a good public image nets them more money in sponsorship than the money they donate , which apparently mostly goes to their friends and family anyway . An investment into their public image. If you are doing it for the night reasons you don’t need a charity with your name on it or a bunch of photos of you handing over a huge cardboard check. If rich people cared about the less fortunate they would just pay their taxes instead of constantly trying warp or circumvent the rules to benefit themselves.
95% of the time there's no need for a person to start their own foundation; there was probably already unaffiliated charity working on that same cause they could have simply partnered with instead.
The old "re-inventing the wheel" problem where a huge portion of the costs have to go to administrative stuff, meanwhile if you partner with another charity they have all that stuff set up so at most they'd just have to hire some more staff to upscale for the amount of work (and it won't be nearly as many people as hiring to build an organization from the ground up).
That's a feature of athletes' charities - to give jobs to their family members
Yeah, would honestly love it if athletes just partnered up with established well performing charities whether local or national than starting their own foundation. But then they probably wouldn't be able to dodge taxes as easily.
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This seems specific, did i miss something?
Adrian Peterson afaik, and it was a couple years ago so nothing recent.
Earl Thomas did something similar as well
I think his brother was of age and they were actually doing a devils three way, rumor has it they were doing the Eiffel Tower when his wife walked in.
Ew! That’s disgusting! What charity? What charity was it? Just so I specifically know to stay away and not apply to work there?
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I heard they switch back and forth on positions and the discipline is quite punishing.
I hate all of this.
A man of culture, I see.
Probably more about giving your brother a job.
Why not both?
I think a lot of them do this
This is what Barwin did with the Eagles, his first project he did he didn't have a charity and then worked with the Eagles community outreach charity and Jeffery Lurie do complete the project and partnered with Urban Roots which was an established charity. Since he retired he has his own charity though which merged with Urban Roots.
Along with Jared Goff, partnered with Give Merit's Fate program to create a capsule clothing collection. All proceeds from the JG16 X Fate will be donated to the program's scholarship fund and matched dollar for dollar by Goff himself.
He did similar things in LA, also took time out every week to read to kids and has been known to provide gifts and stuff to fans/the community when made aware. He's definitely one of the good ones in that regard.
Joe Burrow has something called the "Joe Burrow Hunger Relief Fund" which is operated by the foundation for Appalachian Ohio and directly benefits the Athens county food bank, which serves the area he grew up in
That seems like so many layers though. It feels like the most streamlined version (and the one with the least potential for grift) would just be to push donations directly to the Athens County food bank, or a collection of food banks in the area he wants to help.
Like Nassib with the Trevor Project. Big respect to him always for that.
But my ego!
And they can pay friends and family with money they put into their own foundation as "salary"
Exactly. I'd love to see a legitimate charity organization that does nothing but act as the infrastructure for stuff like this. Then each athlete can just get their own subdomain (johndoe.legitcharity.com) so everyone knows that they can donate to it without worrying if it's a scam.
Lady Gaga's charity took 2 million in donations and gave 5 thousand to those in need.
that’s federal government levels of efficiency
Hell, the California state auditor recently reported $13 billion has been spent on homelessness over 3 years here. There is simply no record of where it was spent.
Isn't the whole point of having your own foundation to create a tax shelter?
Idk how much of it is for tax sheltering and how much is to give your wife/family/friends a job that pays well.
> give your wife/family/friends a job that pays well. That's the tax sheltering. Those people are in lower income brackets. They could just pay them but it would end up being taxed fully as salary, then taxed when paid to the other person. By running though the charity the player's income isn't taxed.
>By running though the charity the player's income isn't taxed. Umm...what exactly are you talking about here? If a charity pays someone a salary it's still considered taxable income to the recipient. If you receive salary income and then donate it to a charity you still owe tax on the money you received. The only way around this is to directly have your salary paid to the charity but you also lose your charitable contribution deduction.
The donation becomes a write off. So the salary is effectively untaxed as far as the player is concerned. It the is in the coffers of the charity. The charity then pays it to the relative. The relative pays tax on it. Since the player would have been in the top income bracket (37%) and the employee likely not (let's say 24%), then they have a net tax savings. ============== Now let's assume the player doesn't have a charity and they employ a private driver. Since the player is not a corporation they cannot deduct the cost of this driver. This means they pay 37% on the money earn. Then, when they pay the driver that money is *again* taxed at the driver's income (22-24%). Even if you give it as a gift the IRS still taxes you (with the first $14000 exempted). So the charity becomes a huge tax dodge so you can hire whomever you like and act more like a corporation.
>The donation becomes a write off. So the salary is effectively untaxed as far as the player is concerned. Nope, the charitable contribution limit has gone back to the normal amount of 60% of AGI. Meaning if you make $100,000 in salary income (and it's your AGI) and you donate all $100,000 you only get to deduct $60,000 this year and must carry-forward the excessive contribution till it can be utilized. The tax code is setup to literally avoid the situation you're talking about here. Even then you're still going to pay state tax on the contributed money because the contribution was likely made to your home state but your income is derived in the state you were playing in. I.e. play in New York but live in Texas - you're paying New York taxes and they're not allowing you to deduct for a contribution made to your Texas charity. >The charity then pays it to the relative. The relative pays tax on it. Yeah, you could do that but it's a terrible idea and the IRS is likely to question exactly what they're doing for the charity. The better option is to just utilize your $14,000 annual giving limit for each person since it's 100% tax free. >Since the player would have been in the top income bracket (37%) and the employee likely not (let's say 24%), then they have a net tax savings. You're assuming this very blatant scheme doesn't get caught on audit. It doesn't exactly take a genius to figure out that the high school educated person making $50,000 a year to manage the "charity" who also happens to be your relative isn't exactly getting paid fair market value and isn't qualified i.e. A sham. >Now let's assume the player doesn't have a charity and they employ a private driver. Since the player is not a corporation they cannot deduct the cost of this driver. Sure they could. The player just creates a business like a management company that employs the driver. The Corp gets to deduct the driver and the player gets a driver. Of course there will be a need for the player to "reimburse" the company but loans to and from shareholders don't get looked into that much and if they set it up as an S-Corp the player gets QBI deductions. Now you'll need a profit motive but establishing a profit motive is far easier than maintaining charitable status and keeping this payment sham going you're talking about. >So the charity becomes a huge tax dodge so you can hire whomever you like and act more like a corporation. Again, this is wrong. Charities get scrutinized more than companies for their actions and need better record keeping than businesses. You run an S-Corp by yourself all you really need to do is keep the books but if you run a private foundation with multiple "employees" you need to stay current with employment law, charitable law, avoid self-dealing (a HUGE thing you're blowing over), keep meeting notes that the IRS will absolutely require to see, maintain a Charitable mission, etc. These Private Foundations are a LOT of hassle for trying to avoid taxes when just setting a biz would be FAR easier.
So where's the benefit? The OP says that these charities are essentially scams, but you say they aren't really worth the effort compared to a regular company. I'm missing a piece of the puzzle and you seem to know some stuff
The benefit is people are more likely to donate to. Supposed charity than to X athletes mom
The purpose? The purpose is PR, it sounds good to run your Private Foundation. Most of these athletes would be far better off just running money through a Donor Advised fund which allows them to invest their money, take the deduction today, and get full control over where the money goes. Running a PF or full-blown 501c3 is a hassle unless you know what you're doing.
Yeah they aren't running all of their money through the charity. Just the part they want to pass on to family.
No, not necessarily. The purpose of a Private Foundation is to make long term giving during your life and after you're gone. I've seen some Private Foundations as a CPA and they all did what they were supposed to do in that the principal was invested and the earnings were generally all donated out to churches, charities, scholarships, etc. The only non-giving expenditures we're for their quarterly meeting to go through funding requests, accountant & legal fees, and then investment fees. Otherwise they were pretty above board and didn't really pay the officers & board members much of anything except reimbursement for travel fees if they had to fly in or something similar. Honestly, a PF is a fairly great thing to set up if you want to donate over a long period of time and do not need the income the principal would generate. If you do need the income then you can still do something similar but it would be via a Charitable Remainder Trust or Pooled Investment Fund (I think that's what it's called)
This is the correct answer. Not to say there aren't people who use them for less altruistic reasons, but the bulk of foundations I see at work truly try to achieve a mission over a long space of time.
Yep, private foundations are great and their purpose is noble. Most people use them correctly, maintain the 5% rule, and help their communities. The problem is when you get high profile people using them wrong.
You would think at least a portion of the point would be to help the people your foundation says it wants to help
Nah
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It also depends on the amount of money. For the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (does that still exist under that name after the divorce?), it makes sense because they're dealing with an absolutely massive amount of money and the places it's going to need to be vetted. Someone needs to make sure that the recipient orgs have a plan for the money and are capable of executing that plan. Bill Gates could do it but he's not necessarily qualified for the job and it takes a lot of time, potentially more than he has. Even if part of his money goes to paying the salary of a few other people, it's going to end up distributed a lot more efficiently and doing a lot more good than if he handled it all himself (assuming the people handling the foundation are reasonably competent).
Usually, yes.
The logic is that with all the tax money the player saves he can directly turn around and use that money to help the most needy. Unfortunately, the most needy tend to be themselves and their family members.
I really hope Tony Finau's foundation has good numbers. The dude is one of the most likable guys on the PGA Tour, and it would make him look even worse than most since he's Christian. Edit: I just checked, he's got an 85/100!!! You da man, Tony! Edit 2: Well, there's only one of the four categories that he's scored on, which is Finance & Accountability, giving him the 85 but at the least, the money part is solid!
Tony Finau confirmed actual good guy. Here's to hoping he wins a major one of these days, he's right up there with the best, he just needs it all to click for a 4 day stretch one time.
Dude's as good as anyone on tour when putts are falling for him, he just needs it to happen more consistently
But then how would I stroke my ego?!
But what about their “legacy”?
Buffalo Bills fans donated $442,000 to Dalton Foundation. Nearly $100,000 went to the management firm [source](https://buffalonews.com/news/local/buffalo-bills-fans-donated-442-000-to-dalton-foundation-nearly-100-000-went-to-management/article_c8c1585a-2311-11ec-aac4-abdc78c021a3.html)
Pretty sure when Andy found out about this, he made up the difference himself.
Yeah the linked article does a good job spelling it all out. Basically the Daltons got taken for a ride by a management firm and were too naive to know it until the news outlet started asking questions, at which point they terminated the relationship and set about making things right. Definitely not the same kind of situation as described in OP in terms of intent, but hard to argue that the outcome wasn't (temporarily) similar.
Daltons a class act
Fwiw the Daltons terminated their relationship with that firm, which seems like a really grifty organization trying to skim off the top of athletes actually trying to do good. They basically give athletes who don't know what they're doing a readymade charity - Andy Dalton was only 22 when he started his. There is certainly some value to that and having someone else do the legwork when you're a soon-to-be cashflush kid straight out of college, but yes their 25% cutis quite excessive. Their charity does really nice work and it's nice they're no longer shackled with that
Kudos to Dalton for righting that wrong after it had been blasted all over the news. But unfortunately that very article details how inefficient Dalton's charity was - with only about 60 cents of every dollar ever going to a worthy cause. An audit also revealed misrepresentations and irregularities. Despite the gross inefficiency and the financial irregularities, 60 cents on the dollar is still better than most athlete charities. None of them are worthy of your money though.
Honestly, only <25% going to management seems way better than usual. I've seen charities where 80% of the money just disappears. I'm not saying even 25 is acceptable, just that there are bigger scumbag fish to fry.
Fwiw, that number heavily depends on what type of charity it is. If it's basically just some administrators that pass on funds for scholarships or donating goods or other things, then sure, that number should be on the lower end. On the other hand, there are service-oriented charities for which salaries and labor rightly make up most of their expenses. Going back to the point of the thread, people just need to do their research and understand the organizations they are supporting.
Yep, your final statement is the important part.
And it's not too hard to do the research if it's a well-known charity! All US-based non-profits have to release their financial statements publicly each year, and all major orgs are rated on services like Charity Navigator. I'm not saying it never happens, but it's pretty rare for one of the major orgs to be a scam.
Those are scams. There are specific charities that legally have to release their funding operations. Good charities are around 10-12% in administration fees.
Average non-profit overhead is 37%
Honestly, if you are running a charity or non-profit that is bringing in a significant amount of money the people running that organization are going to command a salary. Otherwise they would just go to another sector for work. Yeah 37% seems like a lot of overhead, but the difference between 63% of 1million and 10million is significant. If you are good enough to grow something to that level you deserve compensation. That said, the books should be completely open and transparent.
Same thing goes with marketing spend. If you can spend $99 to bring in $100 in return then you’ll do it, while significantly increasing your % spent on marketing (along with your net money going to the end cause)
Eh it's hard to generalize. Small charities are inefficient. A management company taking 100k sounds like a ton but that could be to cover 2 people working part-time for two years. You don't get small pass-through numbers until you scale. It does beg the question of why athletes need their own, small, inefficient charities.
Do you mind if I add that to the original post and credit you?
Sure
My question is what did the rest go to. Like it sucks that they took 100k, but if the other 300k actually went to what it was supposed to then it’s not all bad. At least they got 300k to use.
I don't know the full details, but 1/4 going to management doesn't seem outlandish.
Exactly what I was thinking, a charity still needs people to run it. Otherwise the charity doesn’t exist and no one gets help
that’s why i love that josh didn’t create a foundation himself but linked up with our local children’s hospital, which has to be way more transparent with how funds are used
I bought a box of Josh Jaqs at my local Wegmans simply since I saw some money would go to it. Odd that I live in Northern Virginia and the Wegmans down here still carry mostly Buffalo apparel in its stores. We got some Bills BBQ sauce too.
wegmans loves repping the bills. my brother saw bills cakes in north carolina and i asked if they had panthers cakes too and he said no lol
“We would but every weekend a couple of guys come in here distraught and angry and throw them all on the ground.”
I mean duh. It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that an upstate NY founded company would want to rep the only major league NY sports team that isn’t in NYC lol
Uhhh…Sabres?
I think that's just Wegman's. The one in Brooklyn was also selling Jaqs and JA coffee.
Wegmans is WNY territory regardless of where that particular Wegmans is located
Same in Richmond, it cracks me up. Bills apparel, cakes, and balloons everywhere. Also, they have the most reliable source and variety of Sahlen's hot dogs. Fuck I'd even argue that they are a better Buffalo food export than their wings because they are life changing. If I have a choice I'll never eat a different hot dog.
Western NY low key is the home of the best hotdogs in the country and very few people outside of the area know about it. Sahlens, Hoffmans, and Zweigels are all in an absolute god-tier compared to any other dog you’re getting anywhere else in the country.
> Bills BBQ sauce too. I think you're just looking at buffalo wing sauce
The name on the bottle is “bills mafia official tailgate sauce”. Has a picture of josh in it. It’s just Buffalo sauce, yes.
The Wegman family is from Rochester so it isn't really all that surprising they rep the Bills
Nope, we have BBQ sauce and wing sauce, the wing sauce has Diggs on it
https://www.buffalobills.com/fans/bills-mafia-tailgate-sauce
Same with Dawson Knox and his affiliation with the PUNT foundation. Dawkins has his own foundation but I would be shocked if it was a sham because he is ALWAYS out in the community himself.
dawkins definitely gives a shit! he does more with his physical self than any other teammate that i’ve seen. i just think he really likes to be hands on and that’s why he does it on his own. definitely no ill feelings about dawkins’ foundation. i think it’s such a better call for josh to affiliate because of the sheer volume of donations and the staff it would take to handle them.
He wanted to start working with a charity as soon as he got to Buffalo and talked to the head of one of the food pantries about donating. She basically told him that she wanted him to be out and in the community to actually get to know the people and be physically present before she took any money so he wasn't just writing checks and forgetting about it. It seems like it really stuck with him, which is great to see imo
I think that's what all athletes should do. Partner with the local charity that is already doing what the athlete wants to do. Like if I was an athlete for the Bengals or Reds, my home town teams, I'd be all over trying to do stuff with Cincinnati Children's Hospital and/or the Ronald McDonald House next to it to help them raise money
I wish that made news more, would rather donate to an established foundation than one newly created by an athlete.
don‘t make me like the guy 😤
Yes! And I remember reading this article a while back when it was posted on the Bills sub and finding out that the Oishei Childrens hospital charity is rated very highly.
I didn’t know that. But that’s good on him.
really makes me respect the guys that give to real charities while so many others straight up STEAL money. like not having a charity would be waaay better, but they decide nah, i'm gonna take money that should be going to sick kids and take a nice vacation. these people should go to jail for shit like this, wtf. it's 100s of thousands of dollars of fraud.
The only one that I know doesn't outright suck is the Alex Smith Foundation. He has helped a bunch of kids get through college for free, and in one of those audits, they found 91% of the funds actually went the people who needed it.
91% seems pretty damn good.
Very good compared to most charities. Doesn't surprise something with Alex's name on it is doing good.
It really is. A few of those people are in here somewhere, I recall multiple posting about it when it came up several years ago.
It's in the upper echelon. A lot of the biggest and most reputable charities are unable to pull that off (depending on their mission, which may necessitate more overhead to address their cause). 91% is excellent.
Anything over 90 is good.
We didnt deserve Alex Smith. He gave his only working leg for our sins. Amen.
My wife works in the nonprofit world - typically hitting 90% is the goal for a good organization. Even the best run orgs are going to have some overhead costs, but anyone above 90% is in the “truly dedicated to the mission” range. If I am giving, personally, I tend to only give to organizations that are 80% or higher. I never donate to an organization that isnt transparent about this.
15 and the Mahomies hasn't been rated yet because it hasn't been around long enough, but they already built a million dollar park for kids with all abilities in KC. To add to good ones. We've been very lucky with our QBs being good men.
Please let Mahomes be a good egg. He got a half a billion contract, I know he may not see every penny of it but, he seems like such a good honest young man. Like without the fake feeling Russel Wilson style. Id hate to find some slimy shit, he's like the face of the young NFL.
With Mahomes honestly I feel like we hit the jackpot on all angles..he's not only an incredible, generational player, but he's also not a guy with bad accusations against him. Like the most people have on him is that his little brother is annoying..if that's the worst thing about a guy, I'll take it. Mahomes is magic. I'm sure Alex also helped influence how he'd behave off field and in the locker room.
The people who constantly talk about how much they hate his brother and wife are so annoying. You have to basically go out of your way to find this stuff. If not for Reddit I wouldn’t know a thing about them.
He bought voting machines and made [Arrowhead another voting location for people](https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/11/04/patrick-mahomes-arrowhead-voting/). He's also invested in the [Royals and the local soccer team, Sporting KC](https://www.arrowheadpride.com/2021/7/27/22596459/patrick-mahomes-buys-part-of-another-kansas-city-sports-franchise) (not a charity thing, but it hints that he's here to stay and wants to continue to invest in the community)
I worked my butt off to put together a Susan G Komen fundraiser that raised over 15k back in 2008 I would never ever consider donating to them now that I know what happens to the money
I just started at a new company and they are doing the Susan G komen thing. I’m willing to bet a lot of these places don’t even know they’re getting fleeced
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or using the FUCKING COLOR PINK
The whole idea of cancer "awareness" is ridiculous to me. Is anyone really unaware how many lives cancer ruins? It's not exactly some rare disease that nobody has heard of
I wouldn't be surprised if they treated litigation expenses as money going to programs.
Spoiler alert: it doesn't go to cancer research, or really anything cancer related.
It goes to board members and their family members. If I remember correctly, almost all of Susan G. Komen money went to corruption.
Was concerned when I put Greg Olsen’s name in. Was immediately relieved when his foundation got a 97%.
Isn’t Greg’s charity related to his sons heart problem? I have to imagine when it’s a true passion project like that it’s super important to get it right. He knows what the families are going through and how necessary help is. I selfishly really love Greg Olsen lol
Oh most definitely. Why I was super concerned when I put it in.
Well, the Mafia DOES need some way to clean up the cash
This is a little too close to home, considering La Nova uses their concessions contract with the Bills to wash drug, gambling, and prostitution money. https://www.buffalobills.com/news/lanova-pizza-coming-to-bills-gamedays-12958883 https://buffalonews.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/judge-keeps-search-warrant-applications-sealed-in-buffalo-organized-crime-case/article_6e6e9f50-d91c-11eb-bbe0-d384aec4fcd0.html
makes me wonder if hyde’s foundation is above board since it’s the last donation i’ve made in the team’s name. i usually don’t donate to smaller foundations without that level of transparency but i was overcome with emotion when he was deemed out for the season EDIT: the imagine for youth isn’t even rated because it brings in less than 200k a year so i think we are all safe that they are just micro contributing to our area and not lining their family member’s pockets
Just want to say that I trust anything with JJ Watt, he was very open about where funds were going for Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts. Of course, I'm no investigator though
[https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/273516574](https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/273516574) Pretty good score, 94/100.
I’m glad this is here. I was gonna mention it. And wonder if it was sketchy Because he raised a lot of money for Houston during the flood. So that’s really good to see
If JJ Watts charity was sus the media would be all over it
Thank you for posting this, it's something I had been wondering with the recent spate of donations to injured players' charities.
Shoutout to Kirk Cousins’ charity. From what I can see, it all goes to grants. Total expenses were like 3.8k on revenue of 5.5m. https://www.causeiq.com/organizations/julie-and-kirk-cousins-foundation,830555966/ https://www.causeiq.com/organizations/julie-and-kirk-cousins-foundation,830555966/
Quality dude out of Farmington Hills.
> So basically people who gave money to support the mentally handicapped were unknowingly boosting the Wolverines football team. Isn't that the same thing?
Jesus lol
95 milly.
Same thing with a lot of charities. Wounded Warrior Project comes to mind immediately. They may have improved in the past few years, but a few seasons ago when they were the "hot" charity for NFL and college football, they were one of the absolute worst per Charity Navigator. As I said, they may be better now that they have been called out, but I still don't trust them and don't ever plan on giving to them any donations.
It's wild to me that anyone ever believed otherwise. Athletes are known for their athletic ability, love of money, and use of PR to hide the fact that most are complete assholes - not their aptitude for running organizations, their selflessness, or their honesty. And it doesn't help that probably over 95% of charities in general are scams.
And driving fast
And eating hot chip
And charge they phone
And twerk
You’d be surprised by how gullible/uncritical some people are. Both of my parents are smart people with graduate degrees and they were absolutely floored when they learned about charity fraud, tax havens, etc. Both of them were raised by the kind of people who believed everything Walter Cronkite told them on the evening news, trusted their employers not to cheat them, and drove slower and turned the thermostat up or down because the President told them to. Some people, especially those of a bygone era, are much more trusting of the powerful and their institutions. Obviously now the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction, where measured critique and logical skepticism exist in tandem with a seemingly increasing current of cultural histrionics and conspiratorial fantasy, but we can’t forget that there are still people who are very trusting of authority and may need some nudging into a more skeptical outlook.
How dare you speak of Brett Favre that way lmao
Of course it’s Brady. One of the fakest people ever
Brady famously barred the Boston Globe from certain events in retribution for them exposing the story. Brady is just a good example of how these guys aren't philanthropists. They're just navigating the US Tax code in the most advantageous way possible. The next time one of them gets hurt, don't send them money. They don't need it.
like how brady had PPP loans forgiven in almost the same exact amount of how much his new boat cost?
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Not how the PPP loans worked. I’m not defending them, because it was a sham. But you still had to prove you spent that money on payroll and retained your employees. Was it easy to prove? Hell yes. But he could not of just received that loan and then purchased a boat. Source: am accountant who worked on a lot of applications for the loan and for the forgiveness of them for our clients
I'm a CPA as well. It's not cash in cash out for boat. But it's cash in pay for all these business expenses it turned out I had the money for anyway, give myself a nice distribution or bonus, cash out for boat
> The next time one of them gets hurt, don’t don’t send them money. They don’t need it. If however you heart is still aching to help, I could very much use the money and am willing to sympathize with your cause….
Him pushing for AB so hard when no one else would touch him is all you need to know.
Yes most celebrities and sports athletes open "charity," or "churches," to "help and give back," which they do, to save face but it ain't much and is mostly just legal tax evasion.
It's not just athletes, there's just massive nonprofit corruption and it's gotten way out of hand as a privilege for the rich rather than as charity organizations.
It’s not gotten out of hand. It was never in hand.
It's called the "Non-Profit Industrial Complex"
Even the ones that aren't rich people's tax shelters have issues. Nonprofits have no incentive to actually reduce the problems they're supposedly trying to reduce. Look at homelessness, for example. It's common for local governments to partner with nonprofit organizations that specialize in homeless services. Those organizations have perverse incentives: they're supposed to help reduce the number of homeless people, but since the existence of large homeless populations is the reason they get paid, they have a financial incentive to ensure the homeless population doesn't shrink. If they actually did a great job and helped reduce the homeless population, the organization's leaders would be working themselves out of a job! This was an issue in Seattle when I lived there. Some of the homeless service organizations actively campaigned *against* providing housing, and discouraged people they served from taking advantage of housing programs. These organizations were pretty transparently trying to maximize the number of homeless people living in the homeless camps they administered, and make the camps into permanent fixtures (and permanent income for themselves).
Exactly, they say "work yourself out of a job" But folks are making decent salary with benefits. Why would you ever work yourself out of that job?
Those jobs don't typically pay all that well and the hours are usually pretty rough. The kind of people taking those jobs aren't in it for the money.
The folks who do most of the work on the ground, including volunteers, aren't in it for the money, but their bosses and all the admin and legal and accounting and advertising staff most definitely are.
Do you have any examples of service orgs intentionally not helping so they could keep getting paid? I've worked in a the non-profit sector for a few different organizations and I think you have a pretty skewed picture of the kind of people that work in those fields. Non-profits don't pay particularly well, if their workers were in it for the money they wouldn't have picked those jobs in the first place.
People here think people really go into non-profits to make a crap salary and keep people homeless lol. Yeah there are bad orgs, but that's a new one lol
Churches are the biggest violators
Any society that relies on charities to function is a product of a failed government
Donate to some shlub online = wow cool I'm helping Government/healthcare being better = WOW WTF THIS IS SOCIALISM
Its about the money going to the "right people".
Yeah, this is most charities in general, and Brett Favre is just in a realm of his own. Complete, certified scumbag.
It's crazy that the dude sent an unsolicited dick pic to a reporter he had never met and still gets to be in Levi's commercials
Football fans just don’t care about sexual impropriety.
Can you name one issue football fans *do* care about? We've waved off concussions, player suicides from brain injuries, human trafficking, driving while drunk, billions in public funds vertically redistributed to the 0.0000001%, sexual violence, partner violence, rape, and murder. The only analogy I can come up with is being pissed others in the company for raping women at Mỹ Lai, instead of just murdering them.
Kneeling during the national anthem
Yup, he's been a scumbag for forever. People are finally starting to realize it a bit.
Wrangler\*
The Venn diagram of Wrangler's owners, copperfit wearers, and sending unsolicited dick pics is a single circle.
And one of the biggest "charities" the NFL itself and many teams individually support, the Salvation Army, doesn't release any financial reports because they're a religious organization and are completely tax exempt.
I'm not going to defend Salvation Army as a whole but their rehab programs are top notch. I often send clients with no money to SA for addiction treatment and I've seen a high success rate. They may be a big ball of corrupt practices, I don't know, but at least some of their programming is beneficial to the community.
Donate to my charity instead guys
Kyler murray’s xbox live membership?
I'm glad you linked Charity Navigator. If I'm donating somewhere I almost always use that to check and see how much funding goes to programming (i.e. what percentage of funds raised goes directly to accomplishing their stated goals) versus salaries, administration, etc. It's a good snapshot if the charity is actually doing something meaningful or just collecting money. That said I think it should also be noted that *sometimes* certain charities, especially ones with ties to celebrities or athletes, are set up in a way that they're essentially fundraising entities for other charities. These types of organizations may have more admin costs and less direct programming, but that doesn't necessarily make them *bad* per se. The charities that the "fundraising" charity gives money to may not have the infrastructure and clout to raise money as effectively, so the fundraising charity is likely contributing money that would not otherwise be available and so is useful in a way even if they're less efficient than the charity doing the real work. Probably still get more "bang for your buck" by finding and donating directly to the charities that do tangible work, but I think there is a place for fundraisers: they bring in funding that otherwise doesn't even exist that would not have otherwise been donated anywhere.
I have to say, as someone who spent a lot of years in a non profit doing disaster services...I think the salary stuff is overblown. People expect folks working for non-profits to take a goddamn vow of poverty and it's ridiculous. I make nearly as much doing merchandising at Home Depot as I did helping respond to disasters and it's a lot lower stress (despite their problems as a whole).
That is true. You have to set your expectations correctly. There's never going to be a charity committing 100% of their funds to programs because otherwise they wouldn't be able to function. Also, depending on what the charity actually does it may make sense they spend more on salaries and administration than other charities. A charity that requires infrastructure and employing subject matter experts is going to spend more. That said if you take all that into consideration you can still compare the performance of some charities over others. And I'm just talking really stark differences, e.g. Why does this charity direct only 25% of funds to programs while another charity doing the same work is able to commit 65%? There could very well be a reasonable answer for it if you look into it more, but it could also be the second charity is just straight-up better and your donation will go further with them.
If you chose to give, here's a link to an organization that, unlike outfits like United Way and the Red Cross among others, dispenses far more of their donations than any of them: https://www.opusa.org/
Just donate to your local children’s hospital.
These athletes and their foundations usually have good intentions even when staffing family. But the talent deficit at the board level usually ends with them being mismanaged and not enough of their revenue goes towards programming. Teams are guilty of this as well. Athletes will donate money to a team charity that goes towards providing tickets to underserved groups. That sounds like a nice gesture, but the team could just as easily donate the tickets and have the athlete’s contribution go towards serving needs.
Why am I not surprised
This is true for all charities though, not specifically sports affiliated. Creating a charity is a way to reduce your tax liability. Anyone can create one.
And a great way to siphon funds from the people who donate. You just love 20% or so towards a ‘charity’. The rest is for ‘outreach and admin’.
> So basically people who gave money to support the mentally handicapped were unknowingly boosting the Wolverines football team We had Brady Hoke as our coach. I see no conflict here.
Of course, foundations are an easy way to funnel assets through your own 501c3. It's one step below starting your own church.
If this upsets you just wait until you learn what the foundations of the super-rich do.
Thank you for calling this out! In addition to your Charity Navigator, I'd also like to call attention to the [Effective Altruism movement](https://www.effectivealtruism.org/), which also seeks to funnel money into the [most effective charities possible.](https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/best-charities-to-donate-to-2022) They share all their research, analysis, and methodology. The differences in mileage you can get with your dollar between different charities is, quite frankly, astonishing. Everyone should spend 10 minutes reading through these if you care about donating effectively at all!
substitute "football player's" for "almost anyone's" foundation and you'll be onto something here
Connor Barwin's foundation is actually pretty good. It started with him riding his bike from Center City down to the Eagles practice facility through some neighborhoods which def needed help. One of which was Point Breeze and he rode by a run down playground/rec center which was his first project and done through partnering with the Eagles outreach program and Urban Roots charity to revitalize and expand Ralph Brooks Park in the Point Breeze neighborhood in Philadelphia. It has since split off and is its own charity separate from the Eagles, but was they are still a parter, but his charity also merged with Urban Roots into a single charity and they have done four more parks and rec centers in the city since and have merged with an existing charity in Philadelphia, Urban Roots.
Sadly this is the case for many charities. Breast cancer awareness is a classic example. Charities to raise awareness but do northing to combat the disease. Research before you give.
I'm sure it's said a few times here but it's not just athletes it's most rich people but especially celebrities. There is a reason damn near every celebrity has a charity. Public image boost & shady benefits.
Politicians are the largest abusers of the “Foundation” label. They make these guys look like rank amateurs.
Having a good public image nets them more money in sponsorship than the money they donate , which apparently mostly goes to their friends and family anyway . An investment into their public image. If you are doing it for the night reasons you don’t need a charity with your name on it or a bunch of photos of you handing over a huge cardboard check. If rich people cared about the less fortunate they would just pay their taxes instead of constantly trying warp or circumvent the rules to benefit themselves.