Family Ties: a Sampling of Charities With Relatives in Top Spots

The American Veterans Coalition and three other organizations — the Children’s Cancer Assistance Network, the Disabled Firefighters Foundation, and the National Association of Disabled Police Officers — are all operated by a husband and wife in Gig Harbor, Wash. Robert Friend and his wife, Shao Mei Wang, are the founders and only paid employees of all four groups.

The Cancer Fund of America, in Knoxville, Tenn., employs four family members. The charity, founded by James Reynolds Sr., also has on staff two of Mr. Reynolds’s sons — James Reynolds Jr. (vice president) and Michael Reynolds (hospice coordinator) — and a son-in-law, Joshua Loveless (head of fund raising). Mr. Reynolds’s ex-wife, Rose M. Perkins, worked for the charity in 2005, but then left to form another organization, the Children’s Cancer Fund of America.

Children’s Wish Foundation International, in Atlanta, employs a husband and wife — Arthur J. Stein and Linda Dozoretz — as its top two officials.

Feed the Children, one of the largest relief organizations in the United States, lists three family members as top officials: Larry Jones; his wife, Frances Jones; and his daughter, Larri Sue Jones.

The National Association of Chiefs of Police, in Titusville, Fla., employs a mother, Donna M. Shepherd; two of her sons, Barry Shepherd and Brent Shepherd; and a son’s wife, Jamie Shepherd, in four of the organization’s top jobs.

The National Breast Cancer Foundation, in Frisco, Tex., reported on its tax forms that four members of the same family — the charity’s founder, Janelle Hail (president and chief executive officer); her husband, Neal Hail (executive director); and two of her sons, Kevin Hail (chief operating officer) and Brent Hail (operating manager) — received the group’s top four salaries in 2006.