From Sweetness and Light [h/t Instapundit]:
And speaking of jobs, according to the Southern Policy Center (a 501c3 “charity”) 990 forms as reported, they received $33,526,228 in 2007. The same form reports that their net assets or fund balances in 2007 were $219,551,849.
Holy farken snit! What the hell is a charity group doing with assets of $219 million dollars on an income of 33 million? What good could they possibly do by sitting on that kind of money?
People need to spend more time researching organizations before they donate. People expect the money they donate to be put to work helping the causes they support, not shoveled into a bank vault somewhere to build up corporate assets. How many people would donate their hard-earned money if they knew that the Southern Policy Center was already sitting on $219 million?
It might be time for a law that requires non-profits to publish their income, assets and even the pay of their top executives in every donation solicitation.
Not only do I do online research before donating to charities, I personally visit them. You can get a pretty good feel for the place that way.
It’s not a typo . . .
I found an annual report from 2007, which explains it. Most of the assets you would expect for a charitable law firm–buildings, land, equipment, gifts–come to 20 or 30 million, which is pretty reasonable.
The $200 million is their investment portfolio, discussed on page 14. Quoth the report,
The SPLC builds for the future by setting aside a certain amount of its income for an endowment, a practice begun in 1974 to plan for the day when nonprofits like the SPLC can no longer afford to solicit support through the mail because of rising postage and printing costs.
Yeesh. Yeah, use CharityNavigator before you give!
The SPLC most likely has this war-chest for the legal costs relating to ending free speech? It could also be used for lobbying Congress to implement “hate-speech” laws and/or forced diversity policies?
A private corporation stashing away all that cash would have the tax man take it away as “undistributed profits” methinks.