SCAM ALERT: They Promise to Help Families of Fallen Officers, But They’re Mostly Paying Telemarketers
Dean Garrison
DCDirtyLaundry.com
December 30, 2019
How many us feel good about making donations to what seem to be reputable causes, only to find out later that a very small percentage of our money goes to the actual cause.
We support administrators and staff, more than the victims we intend to support, in many cases.
Publicintegrity.org and The Tampa Bay Times have teamed up to bring you the following report:
SARASOTA, Florida — A uniformed police officer rests his hand on a casket and bows his head in an image on the homepage of the Law Enforcement Officers Relief Fund.
Next to the picture there’s a button that invites you to “Donate Today” and help families of fallen or injured officers.
Screenshots from the website of the Law Enforcement Officers Relief Fund. (LEORF.org)
The website asks the visitor to consider that it takes weeks for families of officers who have been killed “to receive the benefits they duly deserve while funeral costs, household expenses and other bills accumulate.”
But just a sliver of the donations given to Law Enforcement Officers Relief Fund helps those families, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of the group’s tax returns. Most of the money the nonprofit charity raises winds up with telemarketers paid to solicit donors.
The fund is one of several organizations related to the International Union of Police Associations, AFL-CIO, itself a nonprofit based in Sarasota, Florida, that represents local chapters of police unions across the country. IUPA is one of about 70 affiliates of the national AFL-CIO and touts itself as “the only union for law enforcement officers.”
From roughly 2011 to March 2018, the union and the relief fund spent about $106.3 million, according to annual tax returns filed with the IRS. About $82.3 million of that amount — 77 percent — paid for fundraising services.
The Rest…HERE
