Charities ditch Mar-a-Lago
PALM BEACH, Fla. – Another wave of charities has abandoned plans for fundraisers at Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s resort, as the fallout continued over his remarks last week on the violence in Charlottesville, Va.
The latest groups to distance themselves from Trump’s Palm Beach venue were the American Red Cross, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the Salvation Army and Big Dog Ranch Rescue. They’re among at least seven organizations to cancel in recent days, while others indicated they’re still weighing their options.
The departure of groups from Mar-a-Lago is an example of them wielding their clout, said Dwight Burlingame, a professor of philanthropic studies at Indiana University.
It’s likely that charities are disassociating from Trump properties based on moral convictions, but they could also use their exit as “economic leverage” to call attention to ideas they are fundamentally opposed to, Burlingame said.
The most recent cancellations were announced Friday.
“That is part of the freedom that charities and other nonprofits enjoy and part of the responsibility they need to exercise,” Burlingame said.
Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Laurel Baker said she hopes the cancellations emphasize what “we all need to be doing.”
“Critics have said, ‘You are mixing business with politics,’ ” Baker said. “I’m afraid, given the events of the past week ... there is no separating them.”
Perhaps the strongest rebuke Friday came from Palm Beach County philanthropist Lois Pope, the widow of National Enquirer publisher Generoso Pope. She plans to ask the board of the nonprofit she founded, Leaders in Furthering Education, to cancel a Dec. 2 celebration planned at Mar-aLago, the Lady in Red Gala, and move it elsewhere.
In her statement, Pope took exception to Trump’s remarks Tuesday, in which he said “very fine people” were on “both sides” of the Aug. 12 clash between white supremacists and counterprotesters.
Trump has owned Mar-aLago, an estate built by cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, since the 1980s. Trump turned it into a private club and has used it during his presidency as a weekend getaway.
Anyone who shows “even a modicum of support” for neo-Nazis and white supremacists isn’t “deserving of my personal patronage or that of my foundations,” Pope said.
White supremacists gathered in Charlottesville, at least nominally, to protest the city’s decision to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. A man who police say was associated with the group plowed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing 32-yearold Heather Heyer, and injuring many others.
On Friday, the Salvation Army said it wouldn’t host its Holiday Snow Ball at Mar-a-Lago. It said it relies heavily on such fundraising events to support its mission of helping those in need. But, “because the conversation has shifted away from the purpose of this event, we will not host it at Mar-aLago,” the charity said.
The American Red Cross also nixed plans to host an annual fundraising event at the resort. The site has “increasingly become a source of controversy and pain,” and relocating the event will let the group keep its “focus on our life-saving mission and the people we serve,” the group said in a statement.
“The Red Cross provides assistance without discrimination to all people in need. We must be clear and unequivocal in our defense of that principle.”