The Southern Poverty Law Center ($PLC) gets an "F"

The April/May edition of the American Institute of Philanthropy [1]’s Charity Rating Guide & Watchdog Report has just snailed in.

AIP is an admirable outfit dedicated to the notion that Charities should actually spend most of the money they raise on the cause for which they raise it. Many Charities apparently do not agree.

A particular peeve of AIP is entities which accumulate and sit on excessive financial reserves. Beyond “available assets” being 5 times “current spending levels” they give the offender an automatic “F’ grade, overriding the grade awarded based on the “percent spent on services and cost to raise $100” - which is their benchmark measure.

I see our friends [2]at the Southern Poverty Law Center ($PLC to us [3]) are down as “F”, over riding the B- they get as a result of the operational analysis.

Other notable downgrades caused by wealth are the ACLU Foundation [4](A to B-) Hadassah [5] (A to C+) and the Carter Center [6](A to C+). No other politically orientated charity gets an F.

Discussing the effect of the economy of charities, AIP comments

AIP strongly believes that it is wrong for some charities to persist in holding such large available resources at a time when many charities…are having to turn away a growing number of people in need of assistance”

There is of course nothing (except selfishness) to prevent the $PLC giving grants to like-minded political “charities”.

Email now to a liberal near you!