MERDE!

There was something about this on Gothamist yesterday.

http://gothamist.com/2010/01/15/is_wyclefs_haiti_nonprofit_legit.php

I didn't donate to his charity and that has nothing to do with the smoking guns findings. I'm one of those who tends to stick with orgs like The Red Cross and Doctors without Borders. Both of which have had some questionable dealings in the past, but I like that I can at least request my money be used toward a specific cause.

This Gothamist comment is worth considering before folks go projecting a lotta bad things on an org that does good work:

http://gothamist.com/2010/01/15/is_wyclefs_haiti_nonprofit_legit.php#comment-2446060

jayclay wrote: The $62,000 was two different annual payments, so $31,200 per year -- $2600 per month -- for office space in Manhattan, with reception services provided. Not so outrageous; in fact it sounds like a pretty good deal.

And $100,000 for a star to perform a concert? OK, he himself could write off the expenses as a donation, but at a closer look that's all they paid. There's nothing listed for, as examples, renting space or sound/lighting equipment, paying people to run it, etc. If Jean paid all of that out of the $100,000, again a pretty good deal.

Really I don't see any evidence that they haven't "wisely managed" the money they've raised, only that they've been lax in filing their tax returns.

So yeah, how 'bout them tax filings. Seems to me that's the one thing actually known (and not just imagined or projected) here.

Yeah, YELE is much smaller, definitely not among the first rounds of aid orgs that come to mind for the majority of folks in the US or elsewhere.

Guess they got out in front with the easy text/donate idea (and all over the news shows and Twitter etc) before any of the big orgs had a chance to.

I'm guessing the initial grass-roots , impulse-giving surge to orgs like YELE will give way to much larger volume donations to the bigger organizations once there's been enough time for those decisions and allocations to be made.

Interesting once again to watch the power of micro-giving (as happened in the Obama campaign) and the immediate amplifier and networking effect of the Re-Tweet, especially where these small, easy, impulse-friendly amounts are concerned.