DAILY TRIFECTA: Fund-Raising The Bar On Scumbaggery
Grabbing hands grab all they can
TITLE: How a Network of Nonprofits Enriches Fundraisers While Spending Almost Nothing on Its Stated Causes
https://www.propublica.org/article/political-nonprofits-fundraising-ftc-irs-527s-pacs
EXCERPT: One of the organizations ProPublica identified, the American Breast Cancer Coalition, contacted retiree Laurence Eggers in April for a donation.
Eggers lives in Pasadena, California, has Parkinson’s disease and frequently volunteers his time and money for various causes. He made a pledge to give $100 to the group, later telling a reporter that he gives out of appreciation for the people they claim to be helping.
“They really do need it,” he said in an interview. “They’ve worked hard enough to deserve it.”
Eggers has given at least $1,500 to the nonprofit in the past three years. He said his phone rings two to three times a day with different causes asking him for money. However, there is scant evidence the organizations calling Eggers do what they claim.
The American Breast Cancer Coalition, for example, has taken in nearly $9 million from donors since 2019 and has spent less than half of 1% of that on “voter advocacy and outreach.” The rest of the money — millions of dollars — goes to companies with names like Action Committee Marketing, Capital Vendor Management and Berkenbush’s Office Edge. Berkenbush’s company pulled in $222,000 just from this one organization.
The network has paid millions to a handful of other vendors, including one of Berkenbush’s former colleagues at Outreach Calling, whose company brought in more than $3.4 million in expenditures. He and his firm did not respond to requests for comment.
Another man, Alan Bohms, was paid more than $575,000 by the American Breast Cancer Coalition through a company he controlled named Campaign Marketing Inc., which also did business under the names Insight Data Management and Prestige Tax & Payroll. The company has taken in close to $1.5 million from the network of nonprofits ProPublica identified. Bohms was not a member of Outreach Calling or subject to the FTC order, but he has previously paid the company millions to fundraise for one of his nonprofits.
In an email, Bohms defended the money that the groups spend on fundraising, writing that the phone calls are central to “educating and engaging the community about the PAC’s mission and objectives.”
ProPublica reporters uncovered the web of connections between the groups by compiling the reports they file into a searchable database, offering a level of visibility similar to what’s available for records collected by the FEC. (Read more about our new database.)
Even on their surface, the connections between these groups are obvious: Six of the organizations in this network have websites that were built using the same platform and share similar designs. All but one process donations using an obscure payment system also used by several political nonprofits that federal prosecutors began investigating after a New York Times story last year.
Nearly all used similar or identical language when describing the purpose of the organization in IRS filings. They share significant overlap in both donors and contractors, and they often reuse the same language when describing expenditures or donors, including multiple organizations listing an identical description for services from different companies: “Fundraising, Donor Management, Database Services, Direct
At least half of the organizations ProPublica identified worked with the same Morristown, Tennessee-based accounting firm on their IRS filings, Purkey, Carter, Compton, Swann & Carter. Bohms also uses the firm for his own nonprofit, the Volunteer Firefighter Alliance, telling ProPublica that the firm maintained high standards of integrity. The firm did not respond to requests for comment.
Fire departments across the country warned people against donating to Bohms’ charity, and both he and the charity were written about in a 2020 Salon story that connected Bohms to a network of “scam PACs.”
“VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTER ALLIANCE is a FRAUD!” exclaimed one 2021 post on Facebook from the Alpha Fire Company in Centre County, Pennsylvania. “Do not give money to this organization! They are not your local fire company.”
Records show that one of the charity’s main fundraisers was Outreach Calling, the company shut down by the FTC. The Volunteer Firefighters Alliance paid $4.8 million to the company for fundraising in total. Bohms defended Outreach’s work, telling ProPublica that he “found Outreach Calling to be very professional and had never experienced any problems with them.”
Bohms’ family members also appear to help run the nonprofits that pay his companies. His sister, Julie Forsythe, is listed as the treasurer of the National Cancer Alliance, which “works to establish the end of childhood cancer by making it a state and national priority.” Another organization, the National Coalition for Disabled Veterans PAC, reports its treasurer as Bohms’ aunt, Judith Gragert. In the last five years, these two organizations have raised over $7 million from more than 700 donors around the country.
Like all of these groups, neither used much of the money they raised in support of their stated efforts. Effectively all of the expenditures that both groups reported were for either fundraising or other administrative costs. Together, the organizations paid more than $300,000 to Campaign Marketing Inc., the company owned by Bohms.
TITLE: Mystery fundraising firm takes in millions from the Trump campaign
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/mystery-fundraising-firm-takes-millions-trump-campaign-rcna156755
EXCERPT: Former President Donald Trump’s political operation has routed more than $3 million so far this year through a Delaware limited liability company whose owners are not publicly disclosed, according to campaign finance records — a strategy that mirrors past efforts to mask exactly how his campaign is spending donor cash.
The money has been paid to Launchpad Strategies LLC, a company that appears to have been incorporated in Delaware in November, according to state business records and lists a Raleigh, North Carolina, post office box as its address in campaign finance filings. Since it was formally incorporated, the company has received $3.1 million in payments from the Trump campaign and an affiliated joint fundraising committee.
The payments add up to make the company the second-largest vendor used this year by the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, which is a financial hub for Trump fundraising efforts, with contributions then divided between it and other committees based on a formula. In this case, the contributions are shared with the formal campaign and Save America, a committee that has helped pay millions of dollars in Trump legal bills.
The joint fundraising committee has spent nearly $2.8 million with Launchpad Strategies, according to campaign finance records current through April.
Little is known about Launchpad Strategies LLC beyond its existence and the millions of dollars it has taken in from a presidential campaign.
It has never done other political work for state-level or federal candidates, according to federal and state campaign finance disclosure filings. The first payment from the Trump operation was on Dec. 18, just over a month after the company appears to have been incorporated in Delaware.
The company’s website offers no information about services it offers or who runs it. A contact page that offers people a place to reach out and ask questions appears inactive, and multiple requests for comment NBC News tried to send through the site went unanswered.
While the company uses the Raleigh post office box as an address in federal campaign finance reports, state officials in North Carolina confirmed to NBC News last week that no company by that name is registered in the state.
“We don’t have a business entity by that name in our Business Registration database,” said Liz Proctor, a spokeswoman for the North Carolina secretary of state.
The Trump campaign would not discuss specifics other than to say it is focused on fundraising outreach.
TITLE: Trump 2024 Campaign Fund Sparks Wave Of Crypto Scammer Frauds
https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2024/06/18/trump-2024-campaign-fund-fraud-warning-as-crypto-scammers-strike/
EXCERPT: Cybersecurity researchers say two developments involving the Trump 2024 presidential fundraising campaign have left the door open for fraudsters to strike fast and smart. According to a new report from Netcraft, the important dates were May 21, when the Trump campaign said it would accept donations using cryptocurrency, and May 31, when Trump was convicted of 34 felony charges in the Stormy Daniels hush money case. A huge surge in donations has resulted in a new wave of convincing scams from criminals looking to profit from the publicity.
The Netcraft report, “Trumped Up Crypto Scams – Criminals Deploy Trump Donation Scams,” published June 18, warns that cybercriminals had already registered multiple online domains the day before the Trump 2024 crypto donations announcement. Rob Duncan, Netcraft’s head of research and author of the report, said the fastest-acting of these fraudsters created a site that “mirrored almost exactly the Trump campaign page in content and design” but was hosted at donalbjtrump.com, which doesn’t strike me as overly smart, to be honest. That said, a simple letter substitution in a URL has historically been enough to fool plenty of people, truth be told.
What is smart, Duncan said, is that the scammers are actively monitoring every move in the Trump campaign story and “making strategic adjustments to improve the scam.” For example, the site mentioned above started with content including a message from Trump accusing opponents of a witch hunt and asking for donations. However, following the May 31 trial verdict, the content was changed to adopt the “Never Surrender” campaign narrative. The real Trump campaign raised over $50 million in a single 24-hour period after the guilty verdicts. While Netcraft doesn’t say how much the fraudsters made, it’s likely to be significant if even a small percentage of Trump supporters were taken in.
Cybercriminals are using several methods to facilitate crypto payments, replacing the legitimate Coinbase route used by the Trump 2024 campaign. According to the report, these include “phishing pages impersonating Coingate and crypto payment flows using Plisio and Oxapay.”
Another scam example that, depending upon your political persuasion, can be filed under “if it sounds too good to be true...” is an offer to win dinner with Trump for $2,000 at Mar-a-Lago. Again, copying the genuine campaign site layout as far as donation options are concerned, the fraudulent site adds a competition element, with those donating at least $2,000 having the chance to win the dinner date prize.