August 31, 2006 | Read Time: 4 minutes
It begins as a planned-giving officer’s dream: A gentleman rings up out of the blue with an elaborate and emotional story about how he is prepared to give the charity an estate worth millions of dollars.
It ends as a minor annoyance and a head-scratching mystery when the would-be donor is rather easily exposed as a fraud: His address and phone numbers are bogus, and perhaps his name is too.
This scenario has played out numerous times over the past few months as a man calling himself Wayne Bolyer has promised multimillion-dollar gifts to at least eight colleges and other charities from California to Maryland.
Sometimes he gives a California home address, sometimes one in Colorado.
But in all cases the information is phony — the ZIP code is often totally wrong for the state.
Calls made to the contact numbers he provides have led to a grocery store in Florida or a fax machine in Mississippi, but not to a Mr. Bolyer.
And it goes without saying he’s a no-show at the appointments he sometimes makes with charity fund raisers.
In some cases, Mr. Bolyer says he is a wealthy graduate of Harvard University who has become disillusioned with that college and wants to donate to another institution. In a colorful turn, he sometimes credits a chance conversation with an 8-year-old girl he sat next to on an airplane for convincing him to change his mind.
“This is by far the craziest story I’d ever heard,” says Joey Sample, corporate and foundation relations officer at Simmons College, in Boston, which Mr. Bolyer called last month with a promised gift of $31-million. “Red flags were raised initially. He gave a lot of information, but it just didn’t sit right. It took about five minutes to verify that the address he gave didn’t exist.”
Mr. Sample also called officials at Harvard, who could find no record of a Wayne Bolyer having graduated from the college.
‘Minor Irritation’
In July, Mr. Bolyer phoned planned-giving officials at Drake University, in Des Moines, saying he was prepared to give the institution some $26-million. He even said he’d be flying from his Santa Barbara, Calif., home to Iowa on his private jet the following week to discuss his gift.
Pamela Patton, Drake’s director of prospect research, used readily available Internet resources, such as online tax-assessment records and a Web site that does reverse searches on phone numbers, to determine the donor’s illegitimacy.
“It was just a minor irritation — an hour or so of wasted time,” Ms. Patton says. “I don’t know what his motivation could be. He is not gaining money or anything from us. Maybe it’s plain old mischief.”
Most people who have spoken with the mystery man say he sounds reasonable and is fairly well versed in the particulars of estate planning. He is often also aware of specific capital campaigns or other fund-raising drives organizations have under way, information he probably gathered from their Web sites.
“In terms of savviness, he seemed as though he was someone who had made previous gifts to other organizations,” says Heather Perdue, who manages annual giving at the Riley Children’s Foundation, in Indianapolis, which raises funds for a pediatric hospital and other children’s causes. Mr. Bolyer promised the organization a $25-million donation during a phone call in May. He never showed up for a meeting that Riley officials scheduled with him the following day, and hasn’t been heard from since.
Getting the Word Out
As word of his antics spreads, Mr. Bolyer may find his ability to fool fund raisers, if even briefly, at an end. In mid-August, mentions of his hijinks were placed on two online discussion lists that fund raisers across the country use to communicate with each other.
Jackie Henry, who does donor research at St. Olaf College, in Northfield, Minn., read about Mr. Bolyer’s doings through an online discussion group on August 21, just hours after he had called the college with a promised gift of over $20-million.
“We’d pretty much already come to conclusion that it was a bogus call,” Ms. Henry says. “The listserv confirmed it, and let us know not to spend anymore time on it.”
Some folks who were once taken in by Mr. Bolyer’s spurious philanthropy now joke about it all — even bragging about who was promised more money. (Baylor University, in Waco, Tex., appears to top the list: Mr. Bolyer wanted to give the Baptist college $144-million.)
Up for debate is what drives the man to keep hammering away at his hoax.
“Maybe he was a development officer who had been wronged too may times,” Mr. Sample suggests. “His rationale remains a mystery.”
