OTTAWA – “Horrifying” stories of WE Charity’s alleged plaque-swapping and other dubious practices has prompted calls for investigations by the RCMP, the Canada Revenue Agency and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
Charity experts fear that the allegations will make Canadians less likely to open their wallets to other charities, already dealing with a downturn due to the pandemic.
“I’m shocked, astonished, horrified, you pick your word,” said Ann Rosenfield, principal at Charitably Speaking. “The thing that’s hard to let the donor public know is what a gigantic outlier and how unusual the allegations are against WE Charity.”
Rosenfeld, who has decades of experience working in the charitable sector, was referring to a series of allegations regarding unusual donor recognition practices by the Toronto-based charity that have emerged in recent weeks through media reports and a parliamentary committee hearing.
Last Friday, American journalist and WE Charity donor Reed Cowan told members of the parliamentary ethics committee that he had recently learned that a school in Kenya he had funded in honour of his late son later bore a plaque with another donor’s name.
Learning that the plaque bearing his son Wesley’s name — who died at the age of four in 2006 — had been swapped out for another donor’s name was like “returning to my son’s grave and finding it broken, open, defiled and empty,” Cowan said during emotional testimony.
He also said that he’d broached the topic with WE organization co-founder Craig Kielburger, who offered a sort of “mea culpa.” In a statement sent to media after the hearing, the organization said Cowan’s experience was “exceedingly rare.”
In an emailed statement Monday, an unnamed WE Charity spokesperson also argued that all of Cowan’s donations were spent to help children.
“While we understand why Mr. Cowan is upset that one of his plaques was removed — and we regret that error — the funds he raised 15 years ago has long since been used for the sort of charitable purposes everyone expected,” reads the statement.
But experts like Rosenfield and lawyer Alexandra Tzannidakis, partner at tax and charity law firm Drache Aptowitzer, think alleged stories like Cowan’s seriously undermine Canadians’ trust in Canadian charities.
“Regardless of if it’s legal or not, engaging in questionable practices especially with regards to the public and donors, risks putting the entire sector in some level of disrepute,” Tzannidakis said.
“This is already a difficult time for charities, and I’m sure that the last thing that the sector wants is increased scrutiny on how charities are using their funds.”
Cowan isn’t the first donor to express frustration regarding allegedly dubious WE Charity donor recognition practices.
On CBC’s The Fifth Estate last month, James Cohen, another WE donor, said the organization assured him that a group of donors he represented had paid for the entirety of a borehole in Kenya.
But on the same report, another donor said she’d received an email from WE saying her donation was enough to implement a clean water system in Kenya. Accompanying photos appeared to show the same borehole as Cohen’s.
In its Monday statement, WE disagreed that CBC’s story described “a pattern of donor allegations” similar to the one described by Cowan last Friday.
WE also pointed to its statement published by CBC News on Saturday that “there was no donor confusion” all the while mentioning emails that Cohen later understood explained that he had paid for only part of the borehole.
In December, Bloomberg published a long investigation in which multiple sources also noted dubious donor recognition practices for projects in Africa.
“A running joke among staff was that donor plaques hanging on buildings should be made of Velcro because they were swapped so frequently,” reads the report, noting the practice was later abandoned.
Bloomberg also quoted employees saying that a makeshift kitchen was built overnight in a women’s empowerment centre with material taken from a nearby high school simply because a “major benefactor” was visiting and had requested the centre have such equipment. After the donor left, the kitchen was undone and the materials were sent back to the school.
WE responded to the report by confirming that a kitchen was in fact built and then undone, but at the request of the community and not in order to show donors.
But the allegations put forward by Cowan, CBC and Bloomberg were enough for NDP MP Charlie Angus to ask both the RCMP and the Canada Revenue Agency to investigate WE Charity.
“WE Charity is not just another charity in Canada. It has partnered with governments and school boards across this country. Tens of thousands of students have, in good faith, help fundraise to promote the work WE said they were doing,” Angus wrote in a letter to Minister of National Revenue Diane Lebouthillier.
“These claims must be investigated in order to reassure young people that their fundraising efforts are treated with the greatest trust.”
A spokesperson for the RCMP confirmed it had received the letter from Angus. “The RCMP continues to examine this matter carefully with all available information and will take appropriate actions as required,” Corporal Caroline Duval said in an email to media outlets.
The CRA was not able to provide a response to questions by deadline on Monday.
Cowan said in a Youtube video posted over the weekend that he had filed a complaint with the IRS about WE.
• Email: [email protected] | Twitter: ChrisGNardi
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