Charities’ Partnerships Create ‘Synergy’ Amid Secrecy

Twelve Arizona antihunger and health organizations — many of which were formed in part to seek

donations through the federal government’s annual charity drive — decline to publicly identify the names of organizations that contribute goods to them, citing their list of donors as “proprietary.”

The decision not to disclose names leaves donors in the dark about the organizations’ roles in their charity work: Are the organizations a direct link between a manufacturer and those in need, or do the organizations obtain their goods from others?

On their federal informational tax returns each year, the Phoenix-area organizations report donating substantial sums of goods to other charities. But James E. Raftery, the accountant for the Arizona organizations, said that nonprofit groups in general “go to great lengths to protect the identity” of their own contributors of products.

He did say that organizations that help the Arizona charities include “numerous donors from the agricultural, medical, manufacturing, and nonprofit sectors.”

The Chronicle has identified two organizations that give significant amounts of noncash gifts to several of the 12 Arizona organizations: Children’s Relief Mission, in Owensville, Mo., and Christian World Relief, in St. Louis. And records show that some of the Arizona organizations have made donations to the Missouri groups.

Children’s Relief Mission provides international mission support through “grants/shipments of goods to villagers of various third world countries,” according to its tax returns. Christian World Relief’s mission is nearly identical, although it says it also provides assistance for domestic projects.

The mission of the two Missouri organizations “is carried out in conjunction with other domestic and indigenous nonprofit agencies,” said a spokesman for the two organizations, Michael Sholer, in an e-mail message.

Just like the dozen Arizona charities, the Missouri groups will not publicly identify the contributors of goods to them. The charities’ goods, Mr. Sholer said, “have been obtained from a variety of sources, including other nonprofit agencies, wholesalers/distributors, and NGO’s serving essentially as ‘brokers’ between charities such as ours and manufacturers who prefer dealing with fewer ‘middlemen’ rather than countless individual agencies.”

Mr. Sholer said he owns a California company that manages the two Missouri charities, which have no permanent staff, in return for fees that the charities’ boards annually review and approve “without my input” in a “cost effective” arrangement for the organizations.

Until recently, he said, he was a board member of Children’s Relief Mission.

The two Missouri charities are independent of each other, he said, with separate budgets, financing, and projects. Both groups participate in the Combined Federal Campaign, but Mr. Sholer declined to say if money from the government’s charity drive makes up most of the organizations’ annual cash income.

On its tax returns, Children’s Relief Mission said it made a total of $15.3-million in noncash gifts of medicines to eight of the 12 Arizona organizations from 2002 through 2005, a sum that represented 75 percent of all of the Missouri group’s in-kind contributions during that period.

During the same period, Children’s Relief Mission reported awarding a total of $4.4-million worth of medicines — or 22 percent of its total — to Feed My People, which is a name for a British organization whose trustees have included Don Stewart, president of a Phoenix religious organization that bears his name, as well as his wife and his son. A lawyer for the Don Stewart Association says that Feed My People operates independently of the Phoenix group.

From 2002 through 2005, several of the Arizona organizations reported making a total of more than $3.7-million in noncash gifts, including medical and nutritional supplies, to the Children’s Relief Mission, as well as more than $100,00 in cash grants.

$3.8-Million Provided

The other Missouri charity, Christian World Relief, reported providing $3.8-million in food, medicine, and other noncash gifts over the past three years to six of the 12 Arizona groups, which amounted to 36 percent of the Missouri group’s noncash gifts.

Christian World Relief also said it gave $4.1-million, or 39 percent, of its noncash gifts — including $3.8-million in “tools, toys, van, clothing, etc.” — to Feed My People, in London, and $784,528, or 7 percent of its total, in medical supplies to Feed My People Children’s Charities, which is an affiliate of the Don Stewart Association.

From 2002 to 2005, four of the Arizona charities provided a total of $40,000 in cash to Christian Relief Mission. Mr. Sholer said the two Missouri groups’ association with the Arizona charities and Feed My People is “a partnership to cover the many costs connected with the acquisition, warehousing, domestic transportation, freight forwarding, ocean shipping, and handling fees, as well as any local port costs and indigenous transportation which might be included to finalize the container’s delivery to our consignees.”

Philip S. Haney, a lawyer who is a spokesman for the Arizona organizations, said the Arizona groups are not related to the Missouri charities but do “network” with them, “creating synergy to make various forms of relief possible. Through the cash support of some of the [Arizona] charities, and by joint efforts between such charities and the Missouri entities, medical supplies and equipment have been provided where they are badly needed.”

Feed My People uses gifts from both Missouri charities for charitable and humanitarian purposes, “including relief and hunger operations and similar programs worldwide,” said Mr. Haney. He added: “The end result is relief to the suffering and restoration of hope to disenfranchised persons throughout the world.”