Posted on 11/02/2009 3:33:39 PM PST by SandRat
Memories of children crying over confiscated Christmas toys still upset the Rev. Tom Hill.
Hill, a former Giving Tree volunteer, also remains baffled by the diapers. There were boxes and boxes in storage, he said, and yet Giving Tree Director Libby Wright resisted handing them out to mothers in her program.
Wright often said food was in short supply when she sought donations, Hill said, even after he discovered Wright was storing large amounts in one of her organization's homes.
Wright declined an interview request for this story. Hill, who now runs his own food program for the homeless, said he tried not to doubt Wright during his first years as a volunteer, but an incident at Christmas a few years back was hard to come to terms with.
Giving Tree clients attended a Knights of Columbus Christmas party where the children were all given toys. Hill was nearby at the Giving Tree's feeding site on East 22nd Street. He said he was appalled when several parents arrived with their crying children, telling him Wright waited outside the door and took the toys back as the children left.
Sally Hueston, a former client, said her son was devastated when he had to return a basketball.
"Right then, we went out as a group and got a bunch of toys for those kids," Hill said. "Our big issue was taking care of kids who were really, really upset."
Like Hill, Nick DeMesa was a Giving Tree volunteer for several years before he withdrew in early 2008. DeMesa, 60, said that while he was with the Giving Tree, he would frequently donate food to supplement the meal program.
"There were times when, in order to provide food, I would go out and buy a hundred chicken breasts," said DeMesa, a retired Raytheon engineer. He said he was then shocked to visit a Giving Tree storage house where there were rows of industrial shelves and freezers full of food.
"At the time, it bothered me a bit that she had all this food, and I was spending my money to do it," he said. But he didn't question Wright about it, he said, opting to ignore things that didn't seem to make sense in order to focus on feeding the homeless, a sentiment Hill echoed.
"We were always under the impression that there was just no food," Hill said. "I didn't know that there were large amounts of off-site food at all, and then discovering there were all these diapers and discovering there was all this food, it was like, 'What?' "
Paul Bennett, a former Giving Tree client who later managed the Compassion Hope Center, said Wright stored so much food that it sometimes spoiled before it could be used.
"It made me sick. I remember telling her, 'For the love of God, give it to somebody who needs it,' " Bennett said.
At Thanksgiving in 2007, dozens of turkeys were donated to the Giving Tree, but Bennett said there was no storage space. Eventually he gave away some of the turkeys at a south-side apartment complex so they wouldn't go to waste. Many of the frozen birds thawed and spoiled, he said.
A month later, Hill helped hand out toys at a Christmas party. There were trailers and storage bins full of donated toys, he said, and about 150 children were there to receive them.
Even so, he said Wright told the volunteers to hand out only one toy per child. Hill said he was perplexed, but he thought Wright might be being careful in case more children came along. Then he heard her making a pitch for more to a television news crew.
"She said, 'We've run out of toys, and we need help and we need donations,' " he said. "To hear Libby tell the press we had no toys and had 2,000 kids who wanted them . . . that was the last straw."
After Wright's plea, people responded quickly with toys and "lots and lots of money," Hill said. "People are really good about that here in Tucson, and that's why I want people to know that there are groups that do this well."
Preston Adams, a former client who worked in Wright's summer feeding program, said he saw Wright give children bikes to ride before television news cameras, and then take them back after the journalists were gone. The children were devastated, he said.
Bennett said he also saw Wright confiscate bikes that were given to kids at an early Christmas party.
"The children thought the bikes were theirs, and the excitement was high," he said. Afterward, when Wright took the bikes back, Bennett said she told the children they would get them back at Christmas.
Bennett said that a month or so later — a couple of weeks after Christmas had passed — he unlocked a storage trailer and found the bikes still there.
Sounds like she has a neurosis - some people have to hoard things whether they need to or not.
And no one asked the tough question when she took back those kids toys, like ‘what the hell are you doing?’?
Reminds me of the holiday gift program for children they do every year in my town. One year a club I belong to got names and we all bought gifts for children and really enjoyed it. The next year we volunteered again and were told they already had enough volunteers. A few days later a story in the local paper was begging for volunteers. They are off my giving list for good.
Probably has hoarding issues, but to an unparalleled degree.
What kind of monster is she?
People who steal from the poor are the lowest of the low.
This lady should face criminal charges.
Giving Tree finances
http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/315721.php
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 11.02.2009
• GT Outreach Program incorporated in Arizona.
1999
• GT Outreach Program dissolved by state for not filing annual financial reports.
2001
• Wright files five years’ worth of financial statements to get GT Outreach Program reinstated by the Arizona Corporation Commission. Documents list no more than $1,200 in annual revenue for those five years and a bank balance of $353 in 2000.
2002
• IRS: Form 990 lists $33,000 in revenue.
• ACC: Lists $24,000 in revenue.
2003
• IRS and ACC reports show $42,000 in revenue.
2004
• IRS: $199,000 in revenue and $160,000 in expenses.
• ACC: Lists $104,000 in revenue and $104,000 in expenses. But when all the individual expenses are totaled, they are more than $200,000.
2005
• IRS: $967,000 in revenue and $766,000 in expenses.
• ACC: The Giving Tree incorporates three new entities — Giving Tree Outreach, Giving Tree II and the Compassion Hope Center. Since then, Compassion Hope Center — the organization’s largest shelter, which the city shut down in August — reports no expenses or revenue.
• Giving Tree Outreach shows $215,000 in income in 2005 and $172,000 in expenses. Giving Tree II lists no assets or liabilities.
2006
• IRS: GT Outreach Program lists $1.06 million in revenue and $973,000 in expenses.
• ACC: No information about the GT Outreach Program’s 2006 budget. Another corporation, Giving Tree Outreach, reports $266,000 in revenue and $182,000 in expenses. Giving Tree II lists no assets or liabilities.
2007
• IRS: GT Outreach Program lists $1.36 million in revenue and $1.15 million in expenses.
• ACC: GT Outreach reports $521,700 in revenue and $493,400 in expenses, with a net income of $28,000.
• The ACC dissolves the three other Giving Tree corporations for not filing financial records. They are reinstated later after filing several years’ worth of reports.
• Giving Tree Outreach reports the same $521,700 in revenues and $493,400 in expenses as GT Outreach Program.
• Giving Tree II lists assets and liabilities for the first time: $315,000 in a checking account and $468,000 in fixed assets.
2008
• IRS: Form 990 not yet filed.
• ACC: Documents filed do not list financial information, which was no longer required starting in 2008.
Is she a hoarder?
Think Hillary and Pelosi
Scrooge
SHe may come by it “honestly”
Libby Wright-Giovingo, 46, is the director and co-founder of the Giving Tree Outreach Program. The faith-based program started 15 years ago to meet the needs of poverty-stricken elderly folks. It has since expanded to aid the homeless, especially homeless children in Pima County. The all-volunteer organization currently operates the Grace Home for homeless children; Wright-Giovingo says it’s the only children’s home in the state that is not government-funded. Wright-Giovingo has lived in Tucson for 15 years. A native of Labrador, Canada, she’s a graduate of the University of Southern California and California State University at Santa Ana.
From Canada - eh?
Cal State Santa Ana is not a cheap school - eh?
NOt to be confused with the famous photorapher of babies.....
CHeck out her FAcebook, MySpace, Twitter..... I somehow get the idea it’s all about “her”.
I think your close but you may have mispelled some words. Just saying.
What kind of monster would give kids Christmas presents and then take them away?
And all that food! Why let it go to waste?
This chick’s up to something.
She sounds like those people you see on that show “Hoarders”. Disturbing and so wrong. This is reason number 564 why I donate directly to families instead of the middle man.
That’s what I thought too!
they have their own show???
Experts: Financial claims of Giving Tree are improbable
In the words of one: ‘Anybody who works with nonprofits has to question this’
By Rob O’Dell and Patty Machelor
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 11.02.2009
http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/315747
The Giving Tree has grown exponentially in recent years.
What was a small charity for the homeless with $353 in the bank in 2000 is now a sprawling organization with nearly $1.4 million in revenue and services at more than 20 sites across Tucson.
The growth has given the Giving Tree a reputation for helping Tucson’s homeless. But a three-month investigation by the Arizona Daily Star found that the Giving Tree served expired and potentially unsafe food to needy kids, that it charges clients hundreds of dollars a month to live in crowded rental homes, and that at least twice it made a public display of giving kids gifts at holiday parties, only to take them back later.
Many of the Giving Tree’s actions violate city and state regulations, or are contrary to widely accepted standards for charities, the Star found.
The Giving Tree, formed in 1988 and incorporated in 1996, says on its federal financial reports that it serves 8,800 clients a year. The same reports say the Giving Tree provides all that service with almost no staff or administrative costs, which experts in running nonprofits say is improbable.
Giving Tree founder Libby Wright declined to comment for this story. Wright makes most of the organization’s decisions, and her board, which ranged from four to seven members in recent years, serves mostly as an adviser to her, board member Dick Mentzer said.
“Without Libby Wright, there is no Giving Tree,” Mentzer said.
Over three months, the Star reviewed public records from six government agencies that have some authority over the Giving Tree and interviewed more than 60 people — most of them former clients, employees and volunteers, or government officials.
Among its findings, the Star found the Giving Tree has grown rapidly in recent years, but the nonprofit reveals few details about its finances. In 2001, it reported $13,000 in annual revenue, jumping to nearly $200,000 in 2004 and $1.4 million in 2007, the most recent year for which data are available.
The numbers come from the organization’s federal Form 990, required to maintain its nonprofit status. Its filings with the Arizona Corporation Commission for 2008 have a list of corporate officers and answers to questions, such as affirming the organization is not in receivership. It has no financial data, which was not required that year.
Giving Tree federal reports in 2005 and 2006 listed no staff, no salaries, no administrative costs and no fundraising costs. In 2007, there were $12,000 in salaries and $5,800 in fundraising expenses.
Seven people told the Star that they were paid employees of the Giving Tree during those years, and another two said they were promised wages for working for a Giving Tree program but never were paid.
The organization is incorporated under four names in Arizona, making its finances difficult to follow. For example, a corporation formed in 2005 called the Giving Tree II had no income in 2005 and 2006, but in 2007 it claimed to have $315,000 in a checking account and $468,000 in other fixed assets for a total of $783,000.
And numbers in the state reports often conflict with information provided to the Internal Revenue Service.
Laura Otten, director of the Nonprofit Center at LaSalle University in Philadelphia, questioned how Wright could run an organization that serves 8,800 people annually with few costs for staff, inventory, case management, grant writing and fundraising.
“I have never seen anything like this — never,” Otten said. “Anybody who works with nonprofits has to question this.”
The Giving Tree’s accountant, Phyllis A. Conrad, was put on two-year probation in 2008 by the Arizona Board of Accountancy after a complaint was filed against her by another one of her clients for an error in a tax return. Conrad did not return calls from the Star.
Nancy Church, a certified public accountant who runs the Oregon-based Not-for-Profit Accounting Help, said a nonprofit’s administrative and fundraising costs can be as high as 20 percent to 30 percent of its expenses. The amounts listed by the Giving Tree in 2007 accounted for 2 percent of its expenses.
Wright pays herself no salary, and Giving Tree tax filings show she volunteers 100 hours a week. Other board members often are listed on IRS forms as volunteering 40 hours a week, with one at 60 hours a week.
On her own board
Wright sits on the Giving Tree’s board. In some years, the organization has had only three board members besides her.
Hildy Gottlieb, the director of the Tucson-based Community Driven Institute, which helps nonprofits improve their management practices, said boards are supposed to have authority to hire and fire the executive director. “There’s not a vote where the executive director does not have conflict of interest,” said Gottlieb, a nationwide expert in nonprofit-management practices.
A small board made up of supporters who are close to a program and/or its director does not represent the community, Gottlieb said. She said such a board — as is the case with the Giving Tree — often sees its role as helping or supporting the director.
Who owns the houses?
Roughly half of the Giving Tree’s rental homes and apartments are owned by Wright’s husband, Carlo Giovingo. He also holds the mortgage for two homes owned by the Giving Tree, meaning he receives monthly payments from the organization his wife runs.
State and federal financial reports don’t specify how money paid by clients — which can total thousands of dollars a month for a shared three-bedroom home — is distributed between Giovingo and the Giving Tree. The Giving Tree doesn’t list program fees or rent from the houses in its tax filings with the IRS.
Former Giving Tree clients and workers said Giovingo collects rent from the shelters and homes. Paul Bennett, former manager of the Compassion Hope shelter at 4650 E. Eastland St., said Giovingo came in the first thing every day to collect the money from the shelter.
Giovingo rents the Grace Home shelter for women and children directly to the Giving Tree for an undisclosed monthly sum. He also provided the home loan on two of the Giving Tree’s properties — the Compassion Hope Center and a midtown house. The financing arrangement means that if the Giving Tree fails to pay, he could be in the position of foreclosing on his wife’s nonprofit.
Although the Grace Home rental agreement is disclosed in the Giving Tree’s IRS filings, the home-loan financing is not disclosed in the “self-dealing statement” in the Form 990, which experts said it should be. The Star obtained the information about the home loans from the Pima County Recorder’s Office.
Gottlieb said nonprofits should avoid doing business with the spouse of a board member or the executive director. If that is not possible, she said, it should be disclosed, negotiated at arm’s length and done at market rates or below.
“In Tucson, Arizona, there is no excuse not to find rental property,” Gottlieb said, adding that Tucson also has many banks and mortgage providers for home loans.
Renata J. Rafferty, a lawyer who runs Rafferty Consulting Group in Southern California and specializes in investigating nonprofit financial activities, said that under IRS rules, the Giving Tree board must prove its dealings with Giovingo are at or below market rates, or board members who approved the contract could be fined by the IRS.
Problematic numbers
Otten questioned how the Giving Tree could raise money, manage inventory, do its finances, provide case-management services, prepare and serve food, and manage all of its houses without a staff or substantial payments to contractors.
“It’s staggering they do theoretically all this work with no paid employees,” Otten said.
Even if everything is on the up and up, Otten said, violations of best practices can break the trust that nonprofit organizations should have with the community.
Contact reporter Rob O’Dell at 573-4346 or rodell@azstarnet.com online. Contact reporter Patty Machelor at 235-0308 or PMachelor@azstarnet.com
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